


Kunoichi: Brush Stokes From Another Life

by nev_longbottom



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Found Family, Genin Era, Multi, sasuke cannot use chakra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:47:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29895132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nev_longbottom/pseuds/nev_longbottom
Summary: Before the second term of second year, his parents sit him down one day and explain to him that he was born very special. He was born without practically any chakra."No chakra?" Sasuke asks. "Like, a zombie?""A little spark of chakra like a sapling," his mother says. "But you have almost no chakra pathways at all." - A canon AU.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	1. like a sapling

**Author's Note:**

> Unbetad. W.I.P. on hold.
> 
> I really love this story and I will come back to it one day.

Sasuke loves Itachi.

Itachi is soft and nice and warm and cool and pretty and nice and tall and the bestested most perfect brother ever.

Sasuke doesn’t need anyone else.

***

Sasuke has tried to play with everyone in the clan compound. Most of the other kids don’t want to play with him even when their parents say they have to. 

It sucks when their parents say they have to.

Sasuke likes playing with Shisui and Itachi best. No one makes them play with him.

Itachi hasn’t played with him since turning chunin. Itachi won’t train with him anymore. Shusui does it, or one of mother’s nekomata summons when Shisui’s too busy. 

***

Sasuke wants to go to the Ninja Academy. Everyone tried to talk him out of it but he wants to be just like Itachi.

He even orders a family meeting where he sits at the head of the room and makes his parents and Shisui on the other side of the room.

He holds up his best finger art showing exactly why he should get to go to the Academy. He’s halfway through explaining why he and Shodaime and Maito Gai and Itachi were going to have the best time, see this drawing - when his mother puts her hand on his father’s shoulder and does something that makes him grimace and look at her.

His father studies her face and looks away. His mother says they will enroll him at the end of term.

Shusui asks if he can keep the drawing of them with Shodaime.

Itachi isn’t there. 

He’s never there anymore.

***  
Sasuke goes to the Academy expecting that he’ll be amazing and perfect and great just like Itachi and he’ll find his own Shisui and have the best time ever.

Instead, he finds out he’s stuck in a class with most of the annoying clan heirs he’s always stuck seeing at boring formal events. The girls are really annoying. Some of the guys are really annoying. Some of the school stuff is really easy, and some of it is impossible.

No one’s as cool as Itachi and Shisui anyway. Sasuke doesn’t care about hanging out with anyone.

***

Sasuke’s bad at the chakra exercises. Like really bad. Kids keep making fun of him because he can’t get them right.

Sasuke keeps practicing.

He’ll keep practicing.

***

There’s a different village jounin that stops by every month to tell everyone at the Academy about their specialties. Almost every jounin talks about their ninjutsu or genjutsu.

Sasuke can’t even do that stupid leaf exercises. His grades in chakra manipulation are worse than Naruto’s and that kid’s the dead last.

Ninjutsu are stupid.

Genjutsu is stupid too.

***

Maito Gai comes and talks to their class when Sasuke’s in third year. He talks about the glory of taijutsu and how you don’t need anything else to be a True Example of Ninja Values and of The Will of Fire that Lives in Every Konoha Youth.

Maito Gai is Sasuke’s new favorite person in the whole world.

Taijutsu is the best ninja art ever. Sasuke goes right up to him after the talk and asks hi if he can give him any tips because taijutsu is his favorite. 

Maito Gai introduces Sasuke to Rock Lee. 

Sasuke decides then and there that Rock Lee is going to be his Shisui and they can be sparring partners forever even if they aren’t in the same class.

***

Before the second term of second year, his parents sit him down one day and explain to him that he was born very special. He was born without practically any chakra. “No chakra?” Sasuke asks. “Like, a zombie?”

“A little spark of chakra like a sapling,” his mother says. “But you have almost no chakra pathways at all. Shinobi use chakra pathways to channel chakra for almost everything.”

Sasuke doesn’t understand.

His mother reads his face and sighs. “Lots of people in our clan go to the Academy and then go on to civilian schools or apprenticeship when they don’t awaken their sharingan. It’s not unusual to have small or underdeveloped pathways, which can be worked on, but you were born without them.”

His father makes a face when Sasuke’s mother mentions civilian schools. He gives his wife a pained look and says to Sasuke, “Itachi will be Head of this Clan. You can make the Uchiha proud by becoming the head of the Konoha Police.”

“If that’s what you want,” his mother interjects. 

Sasuke thinks about it. “Is the Police Kage-”

“Chief,” his father corrects. “Police Chief.”

“Is the Police Chief a ninja?” Sasuke asks.

His parents look at each other and his mother answers. “Not a traditional ninja, no..”

Sasuke folds his arms and says in slow, clear words, “I want to be a ninja.” 

“Sasuke,” his father sighs. He starts to say something else but his mother put her hand on his father’s shoulder.

His mother reaches for him, pulling him into a hug. “Sure you can. You can be Mommy’s little kunoichi. I’ll train you to be my special ninja.”

His father looks worried. Sasuke’s used to it.

***

Shisui is the one who tells Sasuke about the first shinobi. “The first shinobi were civilians according to legend. Raise your elbow higher.” Sasuke adjusts his kata.

“The first ninja were the dark mirrors of samurai. They fought without engaging in direct combat. They were assassins in the night, they poisoned their targets, stole information, and were the spies of the daimyo. When we learned to manipulate chakra, those who could use it were encouraged to become ninja and those who couldn’t disappeared. Straighten out your foot.”

“That is, except for the rare kunoichi. Originally, these were mostly women which is where the term comes from.”

Shisui took a kunai from his holster and drew the four strokes on the ground in his choppy handwriting.

“Most ninja look for chakra or chakra techniques when they look for other ninja, but a kunoichi doesn’t need to use these. A kunoichi uses poison, stealth, and any underhanded tactic you can think of.”

“If genin are the helping hands of villages, chunnins are the strong arm, jounins are the heavy fist, and ANBU is death. Then within that, kunoichi are the poisoned kiss.”

Sasuke tells his mother about he’s going to kiss the enemy. His father turns purple and has to leave the room.

***

The second half of his year at the Academy starts with his mother enrolling him in kunoichi classes. She must have said something to a teacher because after that the teachers don’t ask him to do any chakra manipulation. Sasuke makes it one whole day before rumors break out and the girls in his classes start being weird in a different way. Instead of fighting for his attention, people stare and whisper.

Kunoichi classes are interesting. Most of the Academy stuff is boring but Sasuke’s so behind on the kunoichi curriculum that he takes to studying the material during his other classes for fun.

***

His mother celebrates his first perfect score in the kunoichi classes by helping him build his first persona.

“Building a persona is the key to a good undercover role,” she says. “We’re going to talk about a person and at the end of the day, you’ll try to have a conversation with me as that new person. Let’s make it easy. For your first persona, I want you to make Daisuke the opposite of Sasuke.”

“What’s Sasuke’s favorite food?” His mother asks.

“Tomatoes!” Sasuke says.

“What’s Sasuke’s least favorite food?” She asks.

Sasuke takes a minute and thinks. “Dango,” he says, wrinkling his nose. It’s slimy and sugary and gross.

“So, if Sasuke loves tomatoes and hates dango, what does Daisuke love?”

Sasuke thinks for a minute and says, “Dango?” 

“Good! And what does he hate?”

Sasuke blanches. “He can’t hate tomatoes. No one hates tomatoes. Tomatoes are perfect.”

His mother gives him a look. “Sasuke, she says in a warning tone. “What does Daisuke hate?”

He mutters something that may have been tomatoes.

His mother ruffles his hair and pulls out a plate of onigiri.

They spend an hour snacking through the onigiri and discussing how Daisuke would reach to each of the different fillings.

***  
Once his mother decides Sasuke is good enough at being Daisuke, she dresses up as Daisuke’s mother and takes him out clothes shopping as Daisuke. 

Sasuke spend the whole time as Daisuke, complaining about his mother and trying to go look at stuff like trains and robot toys. He even steals a candy bar when no one’s looking and is yelled at by Daisuke’s mother in the middle of the market and pulled by his ear back to the store to return it.

When they change out of their costumes in a little changing room tucking inside an old willow tree, Sasuke’s mother holds him close and tells Sasuke that she’s very proud of how well he handled being Daisuke. She tells him to put everything about Daisuke in a box and open his Sasuke box in his head to go back to Sasuke.

He tries to picture it, and even in his head he imagines himself fumbling with the boxes.

She sneaks tomatoes into all his meals for a whole week.

They go out again two weeks later, and it’s a little easier to close the Sasuke box and open the Daisuke box.

***

Sasuke’s father starts complimenting Sasuke’s kunoichi skills. Sometimes he says things that hurt Sasuke, like how he’ll never be considered a man since he can’t do the family kanton jutsu, but at least it’s because of a medical condition.

No one ever compliments Itachi’s kunoichi skills.

Sasuke doesn’t say it, but he thinks, maybe, he might be a better kunoichi than Itachi.

***

Sasuke starts his third year at the Academy knowing how to disguise himself as a merchant boy, a minor noble’s son, a shop apprentice, and a genin mission desk delivery runner. He mother makes him promise not to tell anyone about the last one. It’s treason and Sasuke knows from his mother’s expression when she says it, that treason is Very Bad.

***  
Sasuke’s mother learned her kunoichi technique’s from her father, who learned it from his mother, who learned it from her mother, and all the way back to before ninja had chakra.

“That’s why I know you can learn our techniques. They were always meant for people without chakra.” She shows him a hidden panel in the dressing room containing a strong lock box.

Inside the box there are two different sets of books and scrolls.

“These,” his mother said, indicated to a fresh looking collection. “Are the oldest copies we have. They’ve been sealed to remain in tact. There,” she says gesturing the the worn out set, “ are our hand written copies. As you work your way through the books, you are supposed to write your own copy of the last set of books, as legible as possible and replace the previous set. Your copy and the originals go back in the box for the next generation. Then, you keep the other set to annotate and work through. Any improvements you discover will need to be added as a foot page in your personal annotated copy and in the copy for the next gen.”

Sasuke looks over the old work notebooks and realized that those pages must have been written by his mother.

He can’t wait to get started.

***  
Sasuke stumbles across Gai-sensei in the middle of a Rock Paper Scizzors challenge with some with old man on his way home from playing with some civilian kids as Daisuke in a park.

Sasuke panics for a minute and then remember he’s Sasuke in his Sasuke clothes and he doesn’t have to figure out how to act around Gai-sensei as Daisuke.

Sasuke cheers when Gai-sensei wins but he’s really confused about the thing he keeps calling the old man. “What’s an eternal rival?”

Gai sensei explains the concept to Sasuke and it’s like a whole new world opens in front of his eyes. Rock Lee is his best friend and the greatest sparring partner in the whole world. Itachi is the best brother. His mother is the best mother, but he’s never thought about a rival.

Sasuke goes to class early the next day just to he can storm right up to Yamanaka Ino and declares her his rival as top Kunoichi in the class. She laughs at him until he reminds he that she’s dropped class rankings since his transfer and that if she ever wants to a real kunoichi, she’s going to try harder than that. She’s shocked for a moment and then responds with a bitter attack about his pathetic chakra reserves. He goes after her pathetic horde of minions. She goes after Lee. After that, it’s on. 

It takes two different teaching assistants to pull them apart, and Sasuke’s pretty satisfied with the black eye she’s sporting, ever if she is holding a chunk of his hair and there’s blood trickling down the side of his face.

All their classes turn into a race of bitterly trying to one up each other. Ino’s pink haired shadow takes to glaring at him every chance she gets. Sasuke

Sasuke tries to talk Lee into declaring her his rival, but Lee takes one look and becomes completely useless. Now all their sparring matches are about Haruno this and Haruno that. Sasuke has to talk Lee out of getting color coordinated leg weights.

Sasuke really likes having a rival but he also misses the days when he was younger and didn’t have to explain to Lee for the hundredth time why he can’t get her a lock of Haruno's hair, no really, it’s weird Lee.

***

His mother listens to all his school stories with a delighted look on her face. They talk everyday after school, with two different plates of snacks. One plate for Sasuke so they can talk about his day. The second plate for Daisuke so they can discuss his day.

***

“Stop pressuring Sasuke. It’s too much. He’s never going to graduate with his reserves,” his father’s voice snaps from the study. “You can’t keep living vicariously through him.”

Sasuke isn’t supposed to be home, but Shusui never picked him up. Sasuke knows he wasn’t supposed to hear this.

“That’s rich coming from you. You took Itachi right out of my arms and you made him everything you were never good enough to be.” He’s never heard his mother talk like that.

“This is cruel.”

“I didn’t need chakra to slaughter half my kill count, and the only people with a higher death toll was the Yondaime himself.” His mother sounds furious. “He’s mine. Sasuke is my legacy. You took Itachi away from me and I won’t let you take Sasuke too.”

Sasuke doesn’t hear his father’s reply. He runs to Shisui’s house and hides on the porch. Shisui doesn’t home. 

Eventually, Sasuke heads back home when he’s tired of waiting. His mother is waiting with a third empty plate.

“It’s time to make a new persona. Let’s talk about your day, and then we can get started in Saki-chan.”

***

His mother teaches Sasuke how to be a girl. She talks to him about how he thinks Saki-chan should be, and then makes suggestions for how to change her so that Saki isn’t Sasuke, or Daisuke, but a whole new person of her own.

They work on Saki for five weeks and then they debut her at a Go club. His mother wears her person of an old, male travelling salesman and introduces Saki as her daughter who is old enough to go on business trips.

Saki learns how to play Go and she’s awful at it. She spends have the time looking away and blushing, or looking at her father like a lost lamb. Most of the Go players are very kind to her and the ones who aren’t kind are at least respectful to her father.

Saki follows her father into a different shinobi changing stating, his time tucked behind a seal area hidden in a cluster of cherry trees.

Saki is tucked away into a box and the Sasuke box gets opened in his head.

His mother hugs him close and tells him he’s on his way to being the best kunoichi in Konoha. He’s so happy.

***  
The kunoichi training doesn’t get him out of clan dinners. He’s still stuck going to meeting with his parents in his best formal clothes, trying to be on his best behavior with different Clan Heads and Clan Heirs. Shino’s his favorite. Shikamaru and Chouji are okay, but Hinata’s impossible to talk to and Kiba’s really rude. Ino used to be the worst because she would fawn all over him, but now that they’re rivals, they spend almost as much time roughhousing and Kiba does with his sister Hana.

He’s shoving a spoon into Ino’s stomach to make her let go of his hair, when the Yamanaka Clan head starts laughing at them.

Yamanaka san tilts his head at Sasuke and Ino and says to Sasuke’s parents, “You know, if you ever want to let Sasuke marry out of the clan, he and Ino might make a good match.”

Sasuke immediately drops his spoon and starts apologizing to his parents as Ino begs her father to never ever joke about that again. Sakura, sitting on Ino’s other side as her personal guest, goes white at the thought.

He sees his mother send his father a satisfied expression when the Yamanaka aren’t looking. 

Sasuke is pretty sure Itachi won’t let them sell him to the Yamanaka. Then again, Sasuke thinks as his eyes glance over the other people in the room, Itachi isn’t here.

***

Sasuke is sparring with Lee when two members of ANBU pick him up and take him to the Hokage tower. 

Sasuke never sees a body. He is simply told that everyone he has ever loved is dead. He will never see his mother or his father or his uncles, aunts, cousins, friends-

“What about Itachi? He was on a mission in Rock Country. He’s okay, right?”

The Hokage tells him about Itachi and he doesn’t understand.

***

ANBU escorts him to the compound and he feels the hair on the back of his neck stand up when he sees that it’s empty. There’s no one there. There’s paint everywhere on everything in brown and blacking splatters.

ANBU helps him into the main house and he throws up when he sees the dark red stains on the floor.

He asks to be taken to the Yamanaka house instead. Yamanaka-san lets him in without a word and tells him he can stay as long as he likes.

He curls up on Ino’s trundle bed and wraps himself in a pile of blankets. Everything feels cold.

Ino gives him a manicure, then a pedicure, and then she combs out his hair for hairs, all while keeping a low running commentary on everything that happened at school.

Sasuke doesn’t hear anything. He doesn’t cry. He doesn’t talk. He talks all of his confusion and sadness and desperation and tries to put it in a box. A box isn’t strong enough. The edges of the box threaten to rip and overflow. He takes everything out of the box and crushes it into a diamond. Every piece of unhappiness is shoved into the jewel until he has nothing left but a stone for a heart. 

At the end of the transformation, he gives Ino a cool look over breakfast and tells her she’s never going to catch up to him if she keeps skipping school. It’s not quite as strong as his usual snipes, but it’s enough to make Ino burst into a big grin. She makes a quip about his ugly face. Sasuke huffs and goes back to eating. Ino keeps smiling.

***

He stays at the Yamanaka house while genin team clean up the compound. He tries to move out of Ino’s room but he has horrible nightmares where everyone leaves him and he can’t see any faces.

He winds up crawling into Ino’s trundle bed anyway. 

***  
He tries to go home after they clean out the compound. The ghosts are so thick he can barely breath.

Yamanaka-san says tells him he can come back to their compound any time.

Sasuke is tempted. He’s so tempted.

He nearly says yes, and then he remembers his mother’s promise to keep the clan’s kunoichi training a secret. He thinks about walking away from his last piece of family and he doesn’t have the strength to lose this too.

His mother’s training manuals are there. Concealed poisons, immunization techniques, interrogation techniques, tips for weapon concealment and adaption, and other Uchiha kunoichi secrets. Sasuke’s always wanted to be a shinobi like his brother. 

Now, he’s going to be a kunoichi like his mother. He will make her proud and do what needs to be done.

“Is it okay?” Sasuke asks hesitantly, “If I come by when it’s too much?”

“Of course,” Yamanaka-san says kindly. “Of course you can.

***

Sasuke tries to join Gai for training before he goes back to classes at the Academy. He only makes it thirty minutes before he interupts Gai-sensei recommendation for callus building to say,”Mother says I’m not supposed to get calluses,” and he has to sit back down to help his hyperventilating.

He doesn’t say anything else for a long time. Gai-sensei keeps him company for the whole day and every day after that until Sasuke starts again at the Academy.

***

There are five main class groups at the academy as far as Sasuke is concerned. Genjutsu. Ninjutsu. Taijutsu. Kunoichi studies. Civilian Junk. 

Sasuke remains near the middle of his class by brutally throwing himself into learning everything he can about countering techniques and by having perfect scores in the Kunoichi lessens.

Going back to class is horrible. People don’t even lower their voices to talk about him. People ask him outrageous questions. He stops responding to anyone in class besides the teacher, Ino and occasionally Naruto just to tell him to stop being annoying. If he has to do a class project and he can’t have Ino, he tries to grab Hyuuga or Haruno because they’re the only people who seem to understand him just fine without using any words.

Sometimes if he knows the project is chakra related and useless, he’ll pair himself off with Naruto just so he won’t drag anyone elses grades down.

***

He waits almost three months before he packs a bag and goes into one of the changing rooms around Konoha. He knows that there technically built for ANBU to be able to slip in and out of uniform without leading an obvious trail to their homes, but they are all open to any Konoha ninja.

The keyword is ninja.

Sasuke uses his mother’s old hitai-ate to key him into the room. He hurries so he won’t be caught. He closes the Sasuke box, tucking his diamond heart inside, and opens the Saki box.

Saki’s father has just died in an accident at the Capitol. She’s here visiting her aunt alone. She pulls out an ill fitting black dress a little too large and pulls on a pair of black lace fingerless gloves, because Saki is sad but she’s still Saki.

She goes to the Go club, crying almost the entire time, explaining that she’s been dealing with the funeral arrangements with her aunt’s help back in the capital. She spends most of her visit crying and being comforted by the old club members in between rounds. She manages to get halfway through a game before she has to excuse herself to cry. She tells them that her father loved go and she wants to keep playing in his memory.

Saki’s a civillian girl. She can cry over her father as much as she wants. Civilians girls cry all the time and it’s fine.

Saki goes shopping for more Konoha appropriate clothes on the recommendations of a couple of the older women in the club. She buys clothes with ribbon and lace and most of it is dark colors. Sasuke wants to buy blue but Saki’s favorite color is pink and her father loved seeing his cute little girl in pink and red so she’s buying pink.

Saki sneaks into a different changing room and locks herself in. She lets herself cry herself dry and then she puts herself in a box and opens the Sasuke box. 

Sasuke gives himself a while before he takes the diamond out of the box and settles it in place of his heart. The rule is he can’t open the door until he’s completely Sasuke. No one will notice if he cries in a hidden room off an alley.

***

Lee gives him worried looks when he thinks Sasuke isn’t looking. Sasuke can’t seem to make himself care other than to find it annoying. He used to be sad about it but he shoved the sadness in his diamond. Now he’s numb.

He can’t miss his family if he’s numb.

He likes being numb.

***

Lee graduates the Academy on an exemption and gets placed on a team with Gai-sensei. Sasuke is burning with jealousy lee assured him that it won’t change his friendship but how can things stay the same when Lee has the only thing Sasuke even wants.

He wants to scream at Lee that he should have turned it down but he also wants to scream at himself for being so stupid He knows how genin teams work and how they’re balanced.

It’s a struggle, but he can find himself to feel happy for Lee. At least, as much happiness as he can even feel nowadays, and he still trains with Lee after he’s done training with the rest of his team.

He gets to know Tenten and boy Hyuuga a little through Lee and Gai-sensei. Tenten’s nice and sensible but he throws himself at Hyuuga when the boy has the audacity to suggest Sasuke’s losses were all due to fate.

Gai-sensei has to keep them carefully apart after that. Hyuuga is instantly apologetic when he finds out that Lee’s friend is THAT Sasuke Uchiha, but the damage is done. Sasuke hates him more than anyone else in the village.

***

The clan’s banking institution sets up an annual meeting with Sasuke to review the accounts. Sasuke didn’t think he would have to worry about money for a long time, but it isn’t true. The accounts explain to him taxes and shows him how if he isn’t careful, everything will be gone in fifteen years time.

Sasuke shakes with rage. He never imagined that this might be something else Itachi takes too. Every time he thinks Itachi has nothing left to take, he finds another way his brother keeps hurting him.

***

He doesn’t have a chance at Rookie of the Year, not with his chakra coils, but he spends his time fighting Yamanaka Ino viciously for the rank of top kunoichi in their group. He beats her most of the time by the skin of his teeth and earns his title as top Kunoichi with a vicious final project on the dance variations of Mist.

Sasuke knows how to send codes with flower arrangements, the history of Geisha in Rice Country, dancing styles from Rock, and the Poetry of Rain Country. He can defeat any student in the academy with his taijutsu other than Lee and even then he’s focusing speed over strength training because the calluses of a taijutsu master are a dead give away for a good infiltrator.

He’s studies his mother’s books and makes himself immune to four poison bases. He’s slowly building his immunity to a dozen more. He cannot make a single fucking Bunshin to save his life, but on the flip side, his chakra pathways are so underdeveloped that he can’t be put under most genjutsu. There’s no pathways for the genjutsus to effect.

He’s very bitter the day they discover that. He’s an Uchiha who can’t experience genjutsu. 

***  
He gets his own exemption from graduating. He is told to wait on the roof for his jounin sensei, who he would meet before the formal team assignments.

The woman who meets him on the roof is the sort of woman who has designed herself to make people stare. She is wearing a fishnet body suit with flesh colored lining that has been clearly dyed to her exact shade of flesh to provide the implication that she’s naked beneath. Her miniskirt is just long enough to cover the bare minimum yet still imply indecency, and she wears a trench coat flared open.

Sasuke’s not sure what the trenchcoat is about, but everything else about her says she’s a kunoichi who treats her body and sexuality like a weapon. Then she introduces herself ads Mitarashi Anko, the same name as the village traitor who worked for the sannin Orochimaru, and Sasuke feels himself flash cold with rage.

He’s being set up for failure. Lee got a great teacher but the spare Uchiha gets a jounin who doesn’t even leave Konoha-

He gives Mitarashi-san terse, one word answers as she asks him about his name, day, training, likes and dislikes. It doesn’t take her long to pick up on his abrasiveness and she finally snaps.

“Look you little shit, I asked for your apprenticeship because everything I heard said that you were the most promising kunoichi since Sanju fucking Tsunade. You need to learn infiltration, and poisons and shit and I want to pass on as much as my shit as I can. No one trusts me not to pass on Sensei’s techniques but I can’t exactly pass on jutsus to a kid who can’t do them. You are my only chance to be the damn good jounin sensei and I’m not going to let you shitty attitude fuck this up.”

Sasuke blinks rapidly and he nods. He understands.

Someone is setting them both up for failure.

Anko-sensei studied his face a minute and then sprawls on the floor of the roof. “Shit kid, that was my first sensei speech. How’d I do?”

Sasuke leans over her face. “Hn.”

Anko sighs. “Well, if it’s any comfort if the genin team doesn’t work out, I get to keep you anyway.”

That makes Sasuke relax a little. Maybe it’s not a set up for failure. Even if it’s the village traitor, a jounin sensei is still better than getting shunted into the Genin Corps.

***  
Sasuke goes to the Academy for team postings with complete certainty of how his team is going to be structured. He’s the top kunoichi, so he’s going to get paired with Aburame Shino, the top student in the class, and he’s going to be paired with the dead last which is the Inuzuka because Naruto didn’t pass.

He’s not happy when he finds Naruto in the classroom bragging about being given a pass. He thinks about being stuck with that idiot until the chunin exams and he twitches.

It’s even worse than he thought. His team is Ino’s annoying shadow and that loud orange kid who’s in love with her. Haruno shrieked, “No,” when they announced the team. The whole class was so shocked at the sigh of her raising her voice that Iruka-sensei apologized to her before moving on.

Aburame Shino is on Team 8 with the Inuzuka and Hyuuga. Sasuke scowls. He was cheated.

Ino winds up in a new Ino Shika Cho team rebuild. Neither of them are remotely surprised. Ino glances at Sasuke as he rolls his eyes. She huffs in amusement in response. Next to Ino, Haruno looks devastated. She glances at Ino with tearful eyes and murmurs something about how hard she tried to get on a team with Ino. Across the room, Naruto keep chanting about how he’s going to be on a team with his beloved Sakura-chan like a deranged stalker.

Sasuke folds his arms down and buries his head in his arms.

***  
Anko-sensei is perfectly on time and is genuinely distraught when she sees two gloomy genin and a nutjob waiting for her.

“Alright kids, we’re gonna head over to my favorite training grounds and get to know each other.”

Anko-sensei takes them to training ground 44 which looks like the place teenagers go to die in scary movies.Sasuke tries his best to look unimpressed but the waing through the trees makes a wailing sound that sends shivers down his spine.

“Alright kids, you’ve been in classes together for three years. Can you guess what kind of team you’re going to be?” Anko asks.

A dead team, Sasuke thinks bitterly.

No one says anything.

“Okay, let me put it to you like this. Sakura, did you know that there’s a secondary rubric for grading Nara kids at the Academy?”

Sakura looks confused for a moment and covers her mouth with both hands in horror. Naruto doesn’t get it, which comforts Sasuke because he doesn’t know where this is going.

Anko-sensei smiles with too many teeth, “You see, Nara kids have a habit of throwing their grades specifically so they won’t be at the top of the class. So to get an accurate reading of their grades come team forming time, you apply their recent test answers against the algorithm for Nara kids and boom. Congratulations on being the top ranked shinobi in your year, Sakura.”

Sakura looked like she was going to throw up.

Anko-sensei must have felt some shred of remorse because ruffled Sakura’s hair around her hair ribbon and said, “Cheer up. The amount of file detail strategy is fantastic for infiltration and tactics.” 

Sakura looked less sickly at that so it must have been comforting.

“You, Uzumaki kid, did you know that inventing your own jutsu is a tokubetsu jounin skill?” Anko asked.

Naruto made an expression so rare, it took Sasuke a minute to realize it was embarrassment. “Oh.” He says quietly, then shouts a split second later, “Hell yeah it’s a fancy skill because I’m gonna be Hokage! Believe it!”

Anko snorted, “Yeah, okay. Here’s the thing though - of all the jutsu you could have invented, you picked a ninjutsu transformation that changed your gender and transmutes your clothing into a pocket dimension, with a layered genjutsu targeted to affect the sexual attraction aspect’s of your target’s mind. It’s badass.”

Uzumaki looks up at her in complete adoration, “Sensei,” he says choking with emotion, “you are so! Cool!”

Sasuke is on the verge of throwing up a little in his mouth.

“And you, my itty bitty baby kunoichi here,” She says, wrapping one arm around Sasuke and he struggles to squirm out from under her, “Have been sneaking around the village under ANBU’s nose with at least three separate personas living different lives that actual overlap - and you haven’t been caught by a single person outside of ANBU.”

Sakura snaps her fingers. “Infiltration and Intelligence.”

Anko-sensei beams at her. “You’ve got it kid. We’re the covert ops infiltration, if you pass my test to become a genin team.”

“How can you be three different people?” Naruto asks, caught on the entirely wrong thing.

Sasuke considers rethinking his life plan. Civilian life can’t be worse than Naruto.

***


	2. the test

Their test is devious.

“All you have to do, is evade me for one hour tomorrow inside T&I Headquarters while remaining inside the areas restricted to civilians,” Anko-sensei says, smiling with too many teeth. “And, of course, not get apprehended.” 

Anko-sensei makes a point of looking at each of them in turn. “Remember kids, try not to commit treason while you’re at it. If you can manage all that, you can pass. See you tomorrow at noon.”

She disappears in a flash right into the forest.

His teammates relocate to a safer spot to plot.

Sasuke is dreading the thought of trying to sneak into a place with the orange wonder but Haruno probably won’t be too bad. She’s basically a shadow of an actual person anyway, he thinks unkindly and then dismissed the thought.

Sakura brings up the idea of walking in a hour before sensei shows up and walking in as themselves under the pretense of visiting Inoichi and then causing a distraction as a cover for not actually leaving the building. Naruto surprises the both of them by saying that he knew most of the building well enough to build them a map of the areas beyond the general offices, but he’s banned from the building.

Sakura tells him to just use his stupid jutsu and put some clothes on so they can introduce him as the third member of the team. Naruto sulks at the mention of clothes but seems a little touched that Sakura would call him a teammate.

They can’t let Naruto draw a map because that really would be treason, but they steal some wax from the staff room and recreate as much of the floors as the three of them can from memory. The plan is simple: go in as themselves, put on some quick disguises, and hide amongst the T&I staff as a genin squad during janitorial duties. It will keep them in the restricted areas without accidentally committing treason.

They regroup as Sasuke’s place to collect supply material. They’re no time for Haruno or Naruto to actually get good disguise material so Sasuke reluctantly nods in agreement when Haruno asks him to lend them some of his supplies and clothes. 

**

The desk chunin at the front entrance almost refuses to let them in when Haruno asks for access and Naruto tries to argue, but Sasuke pushes them both aside and give the chunin a long suffering look.

“Hi Uchiha-san, were they with you?” Hiromi asks, pressing the buzzer to unlock the door.

Sasuke nods and gives her a small smile, flashing the Konoha standard hand signal for thank you at her. They walk into a tight maze of narrow white hallways with dead ends and clear glass doors and glass windows into the different departments at T&I. Sasuke leads them straight to Inoichi’s office, hands rapidly flashing Hello at the people walking past him in the hallway. He can feel Naruto and Haruno craning their necks to look into the various different department lobbies.

Foreign Intelligence has four entrances but they are stalling for time so he takes his teammates in through the farthest entrance. He has to grab Naruto by the collar when he heads for the corner office. Sasuke doesn’t have the patience to explain that it’s a decoy when he tugs them through an unmarked door into Inoichi’s office.

“Sasuke!,” he says, delighted. “Is this your team?” He comes around the desk and sweeps Sasuke into a big hug. “My baby boy is all grown up.” He sets Sasuke down and does a double take when he sees Haruno.

“You’re kidding,” Inoichi says, “You’re teammates with Sakura-chan? Ino is going to be delighted.”

Sasuke raises an eyebrow at him. 

“She’s going to get both of you to give up dirt on each other. Trust me, she’ll be delighted.” Inoichi says, before turning to the third person in their group, “And who are you miss?”

Naruto opens his mouth and Sakura wraps an arm around his shoulders, sinking her nails into his shoulder. “This is Utena-san,” Sakura murmurs. “She’s my friend.”

Naruto actually turns to her with more emotion than Sasuke can handle before noon. “Sakura-chan,” he says is a breathy voice, “...you really consider me a friend?”

Sakura face turns red and she looks down at the floor. “Of course.”

Sasuke is sure she’s red with rage. Even so, Inoichi turns and gives Sasuke a questioning look.

Sasuke rolls his eyes. He signs, I know, and tries to put as much long suffering as he can into his signs.

He closes the office door and then plops himself down in one of the seats.There’s a discomfort creeping up inside him, an uncomfortable awareness of Naruto in the room. It’s Naruto, he reminds himself and- he can’t get his throat to unclench. He takes a slow breath and signs, You would not believe who got assigned as our sensei. 

Haruno translates when it’s clear that Naruto has no idea what Sasuke is saying.

They spend the next twenty minutes there, talking about the team assignments and about their impressions of their sensei. Naruto glances at the clock when they have ten minutes to go and excuses himself to the restroom. He comes back after a couple minutes and settles in the corner chair.

They only need one hour to pass. Sasuke spent the last five years in and out of T & I with Inoichi and Ino. He knows the Office floors. Naruto know some of the ANBU floors. Haruno’s been inside once or twice and apparently she’s the top shinobi This might work.

Haruno’s in the middle of telling Inoichi about some anecdote about Ino when the emergency lights start flashing. Inoichi flashes the sign for Intruder alert as Sasuke and herd the kids to the door. “Go straight for the front desk. Hiromi will clear you kids to get out. We’re on lock down.” Inoichi starts to herd them for the door. “I need to clear my department and get to Ibiki.”

He ushers them into a hallway where there’s several people complaining and walking quickly. More people than Sasuke’s seen in the halls at once anyway. They try not to walk too slow, but purposefully move in circles in the hopes of hearing something useful.

They overhear a couple of chunin complaining about a requisition request for help from Cryptography for Domestic Intelligence that won’t get filled because of the intruder alert.

Team seven look at each other and seem to understand each other just fine.

***  
They slip into a restroom and huddle together in the largest stall to help each other get ready. Sasuke takes the longest to get ready, putting on a dull green wig and contacts to match with a collection of magnetic piercing to distract from his features. He swaps his hitai-ate for his mother’s, the older strap and dulled metal fitting making look as though he’s been in active duty for a while. Haruno combs a brown vegetable dye into her hair, darkening the strands to make it look greasy and less distracting before pulling it into a stern bun and adding glasses. 

Naruto isn’t trusted to change his transformation without screwing it up. Haruno ties his pigtails into buns and puts a medical mask on him so he looks like he has a cold. They all take turns closing their eyes while they swap clothes and Sasuke tosses their normal clothes back into his carry duffle, which he drops in the trash bin, tucked underneath the plastic bag collecting trash.

***

Domestic Intelligence is confused but relieved to see them. “Holy fuck did we need you,” someone says, and hustles them into a room with six tables and a number of frustrated, arguing desk ninja.

There are twelve suspected people in fire country who they believe are hiring foreign ninja for S-Class missions. They needed the cryptography experts to review the financial data involving multiple shell corporations to figure out who’s just committing tax evasion and who is sending S-class mission pay to missing nin and/or enemy villages.

Sasuke is so unbelievably grateful in this moment that they let Naruto wear giant green google’s instead of glasses. This information is so borderline treason that he’s constructing an argument against it in his head.

The chunin hands each of them a stack of folders paperwork and point them to a pair of desks pressed together towards the back. The red lights are still flashing but it’s obvious that no one in the room could care less. 

***

Twenty minutes later, Naruto is unsubtly drawing dicks on the corners of the pages under the pretext of taking notes and Haruno seems to have actually started building a case out of the two folders she’s looked at. Sasuke knows he’s got to get Naruto out before he blows their cover. 

35 minutes left to go.

Sasuke stabs up and taps the space in front of Haruno’s work space. She looks up and discretely flashes one of the ANBU hand signals that Inoichi had taught them. Her finger placement is a little off, but Sasuke can tell she’s trying to ask him what he wants. He rests his hand flat on the table and curls the ring finger pointing at Naruto until it stands up. Then lifts his hand in a twitch so that the crooked ring finger points at the door. Years of forced proximity to each other due to Ino had been enough for Haruno to learn the mix of ANBU hand signals and Konoha Standard signals that Sasuke uses to communicate around strangers and in public.

Haruno nods slightly and then snaps in an obnoxious capital accent, “Bring me form 38b and don’t bring the gennin back with you. Make them give you Eiji.” 

Naruto lets out a squawk of outrage. Sasuke grabs his wrist and digs his nails into Naruto’s wrist in warning. 

Despite the clear flashing links that indicate a lockdown and require everyone to stay inside their departments, no one actual stops them from leaving. It uncomfortably reminds Sasuke that if Domestic Intelligences cares that little about anyone stopping him from leaving, then the foreign ninja missing problem must be worse than he thought and also a lot closer to treason than he’s comfortable with.

This time when they slip into the corridor, it’s empty enough to make Sasuke’s skin crawl. He take Naruto around two curves and signs the phrase, Remember to let me do the talking, before he remembers that Naruto failed all their Konoha Standard lessons. He signs and turns around to keep walking when Naruto grabs him by the shoulder and signals, ANBU please, in sharp clear movements.

Sasuke it takes Sasuke a moment to realize that ANBU is actually using ANBU signals and he’s so shocked that Naruto has to repeat himself a third time, 

Konoha standard was designed to be easy to communicate, a mix of two hands and facial expressions to carry meaning. ANBU wore masks and their words were a full bodied motions, hands, wrists, shoulders, knees and deliberate head motions all working in different combinations to speak. After all, ANBU wore masks and rarely had both hands free to speak.

Sasuke replies back in entirely ANBU. It takes him a minute to remember to filter out the Konoha Standard that he was used to mixing in. He explains that he’s taking Naruto to a cache of janitorial supplies for part two of the plan.

But teammate?, Naruto say, movements more confident.

Safe enough, Sasuke signs, because they did happen to leave Haruno in her element. Surrounded by idiots who could be tricked into overlooking her and doing her every whim. Sensei is searching for three, he signs, not two and one. She’ll regroup.

He finds the closet easily enough and drags Naruto inside to swap pieces of clothes and rearrange their hairstyles just enough to make them look different. Or at least different enough that someone would need to look twice to recognize them. They take out the rolling cart and load it up with anything that looks remotely useful and roll it towards the entrance for the interrogation cells.

There’s a guard at the entrance, but Sasuke was expecting it. He cracks his neck and effects a lazy slouch. He opens up the box in his head labeled ‘Chiaki’ and stretches his arms up. As he breaths down, he closes the ‘Uchiha Sasuke’ in his head.

Naruto gives the guard a wide eyed look.

The guard asks them to identify themselves.

Chiaki lets out a long suffering sigh, “What a drag,” he whines, drawing the word out. 

He can heard Naruto let out a sharp inhale next to him.

“We lost a bit to Aoba and took the shit mission assignment cleaning the empty cells,” Chiaki says, gesturing with his chin towards the door behind the guard. The sealword was a bright blue mess behind him.

“I haven’t seen you before,” the guard says, quinting at them.

“Me and my babe here clean the Basement. I don’t like dealing with this wet works shit, you know? But a bet’s a bet and this is just the emptied cells after T&I clears them.” Chiaki shudders, “This is gonna be some nasty shit.” Chiaki sighs again and gives the guard a curious look. “You think someone left a finger or something in there?”

The guard is silent for a moment and then whispers, “I heard someone found an arm once. It didn’t have any traps or anything so the T&I nin just left it there. A whole arm.” He huffs a laugh. “Can you believe it?”

Chiaki grins, “Freak. All jounin are freaks.” He holds out his fist for a fist bump. 

The guard bumps his fist without hesitating. He smiles at Sasuke and then drops the expression when he looks at Naruto. “What’s wrong with her?”

Naruto is staring at them in complete shock. 

Chiaki shrugs, “She’s squeamish but it’s a two man mission and no one else was up for running a trumped up D rank.”

Chiaki makes a bit more small talk and the guard lets them through. Chiaki makes a point of wrapping one arm around Naruto and holding him close as them pass through the seal. He keeps the act until the door seals shut and the seals flare the bright blue indicating the lock.

The Chiaki box gets slammed shut and the Sasuke box opens fast enough to give himself whiplash. 

You okay, Sasuke signs, leaning his body at just enough of an angle to make it clear he’s asking a question.

Naruto grabs Sasuke by the shoulders and whispers loud enough to hurt his ears, “I DIDN’T KNOW YOU COULD TALK HAVE YOU ALWAYS BEEN ABLE TO TALK WHY DID YOU CALL ME BABE DO YOU KNOW THAT GUY-”

Sasuke cuts him off by slamming his hand over Naruto’s mouth and waiting until he shut up to let go.

I can’t talk, Sasuke signs, usually. Complicated. We’re on a time limit, he signs, pointing at the clock in the corner. 

They have twenty minutes left.

He shoves a cleaning bottle into Naruto’s hands.

***

The empty cells are disgusting. The doors are closed on the occupied cells, but anything with an open door is free to clean. There’s every body fluid imaginable on the walls. Sometimes there are words and drawing on the walls or claw marks.

Naruto and Sasuke just walk past everything, wide eyed and scared to go in. Sasuke thinks about daring Naruto to go in, but he’s pretty sure if he does that, Naruto will dare him to go in and Sasuke would rather die than lose a bet that easy but he’d rather die twice then accidentally get himself locked in a cell during his gennin test.

There’s a big red line drawn halfway down the hallway and Sasuke is pretty sure crossing it is just asking to be arrested for treason.

He keeps an eye on the walls, scanning for any seal work that implies the ANBU caches or changing rooms that his mother’s headband will let him access. He feels too exposed in that hallway. 

When his nerves get too high, he asks Naruto how he learned ANBU. A dead last idiot who failed Konoha Standard after seven years of classes has no business knowing ANBU signs.

“My ANBU taught me to talk like that when I was little,” Naruto says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Didn’t your ANBU teach you?”

Sasuke starts to sign no but he stops. Yes, Inoichi was the one who taught him to talk ANBU when it was obvious one month after the massacre that Sasuke wasn’t going to talk, might not ever start to talk again outside of private spaces where he felt safe - when he remember the time he and Ino had gotten into a fistfight, the knocked a bunch of furniture out of place with their fighting and somehow, knocked a panel off the wall that had revealed a freshly laundered ANBU uniform. They had put the panel back and swore to never talk about it again.

Yes, Sasuke signs, feeling strange about having this of all things in common with Naruto, my ANBU taught me.

There’s a flash of motion in the window on the door and the door opens on Haruno and a body on the ground.

“Is he dead?” Naruto shrieks. 

Haruno scowls, “Shut up, Naruto. You’re going to get us caught.”

Sasuke sends her a look and then points his face toward the body at her feet.

Haruno turns bright red, “Shut up Sasuke. Anko-sensei’s been searching all the departments during the lockdown. I saw one of her summons leaving Domestic Intelligence. We’ve been made.“

She tries to go in but the barrier seal turns a solid blue where she presses against it.

Take the hitai-ate off the guard, Sasuke signs. The seals are keyed to certain hitai-ate, he signs and then taps his mother’s hitai-ate on his head. 

Haruno yanks it right off the guards neck, not even hesitating over the taboo of touching someone elses hitai-ate. This time when she presses against the entrance, she falls right in.

And as soon as she’s on the other side, the seals turn bright red and the flashing red lights switch to a white flickering light.

“Damn,” Naruto swears. “ANBU is coming.”

Sakura flinches and then after a moment, she straightened her spine. “I have a plan. Help me move him.”

They grab the guard and throw him in one of the empty cells. They have to close the door on him, but Sakura points out that they can get Anko-sensei to let him out afterward.

They don’t actually see the ANBU when they come into the interrogation cells to search, but Sasuke feels the killing intent pass over them as they were clearly inspected and then dismissed. He feels the killing intent head towards the deeper cells and once it passes, Sakura motions for them to put down their supplies and come out of the cell. The main entrance seal is reset. Manage to open the door when they feel the killing intent head their way.

Sakura throws the guard’s headband towards his door and pushes her teammates out the door. Naruto drags them into the first department door they can find.

The cryptology department barely notice their entrance. They head right over to the kitchenette in the corner and quietly start making tea.

Sasuke glances at the clock.

It’s five past the hour. They made it. They accidentally set up of the ANBU level intruder alarms but they made it.

Sasuke points the clock. Naruto opens his mouth to yell and stops, thinking for a minute and whispering, ‘Holy shit we’re genin.’

One of the cryptology ninja frowns as Naruto, “You know, that’s really not something to be proud about at your age.”

Sakura grabs Naruto by the ear and gives him a warning tug before he can say anything.

Ironically, someone in cryptology notices them sitting without anything to go and hands the three of them a missing to report to Domestic Intelligence to help with a project. They take the missive and make it three steps outside before ANBU Owl appears in front of them and crosses his arms in what is a depressing amount of disappointment.

They get taken to Morino Ibiki’s office as group where Anko-sensei is waiting with a pile of empty dango steps. 

“I told you my babies could do it,” she says, smirking at the Morino-san.

He sighs and rubs his temples. “Debriefing, kids. I need to hear about every step you took and we will discuss everything.”

The debrief takes another three hours. They go over everything they did right and everything they did wrong. Anko-sensei and Morino-san explain to them better options or choices they could have made. Then, instead of celebrating as a team, they get sent to Domestic Intelligence because Sakura was actually right about it and Anko-sensei believed in making people finish what they started.

“Also, it’s not treason if we give it to you as a mission assignment so have fun kids!” Anko-sensei says, before handing Haruno a wad of cash. “Here’s some lunch money. We meet at Training Ground 44 in six hours.”

Sasuke does not look forward to explaining any of this to Inoichi.


	3. genin days

Sasuke is too tired from the stupid test and sensei’s training to do much else other than to go back to Ino’s since it’s closer to Training Ground 44. He falls face first on the sofa. He’s too tired to snipe back when Ino sits on the floor next to him and starts sniping about how much better her team is and how they’re going to make chunin faster than Team 7.

Sasuke keeps his face firmly planted face down and just signs his response left handed.

They all go out to dinner when Inoichi comes comes home. He offers to let them each bring a friend, but Ino says that Sakura is celebrating with her family and Sasuke says that Lee’s out on a six week mission. It’s just the three of them.

Sasuke actually manages to get enough energy together after some tomato salad to tell Ino that if she honestly thinks Team 10 is going to be better than the originals then, “all that bleach has leaked into your brain.”

Ino screeches and launches herself at him.

Their server is used to this.

***

Team 7 meets up at the main administrative building for their official team picture and registration. There are about five other genin teams registering for the first time. Sasuke recognizes Shino’s team and Ino’s team right away, but he doesn’t recognize the other genin teams. Likely from the other class, he thinks and dismisses them as vaguely useless.

It’s interesting to watch Anki-sensei and Naruto make small talk with the administrative staff. They keep discovering that they know the same people and making excited conversation.

He and Haruno exchange looks over and over again as their teammate and sensei act more and more alike as they feed off each others excitement.

There’s a bizarre shouting match when they find out they both have back to back appointments in the administrative building with the same person. Haruno’s hand twitches, like she just wants to punch Naruto for being rude but she can’t when it’s their sensei encouraging the behavior.

There’s two of them, Sasuke signs.

She looks at him from the corner of her eye and signs back, Yikes, with an equally deadpan expression.

Sasuke tries to cover up his smirk with a cough. He doesn’t want her to think they’re becoming friends or anything.

***

It turns out that the person Anko-sensei and Naruto sensei have in common is not a psychotherapist, like Sasuke guessed, but the Hokage.

The Hokage.

Sasuke feels like he’s trapped in a nightmare.

“This man is my Grandpops. He raised my sensei up like his own son and then when sensei took me in, I became an honorary Sarutobi. Right Pops?” Anko-sensei says, pushing her students towards him and beaming with pride.

Naruto starts shrieking to the Hokage (the actual Hokage, Sasuke yells in the back of his mind) about how he never told Naruto about Anko-sensei and he keeps calling the Hokage “Old Man” to the Hokage’s face.

The Hokage doesn’t even seem to mind.

Sakura feels mortified.

“Anyways, just stopped by to show off my new kids. Later pops!” Anko-sensei says cheerfully

***

Anko-sensei approaches him during their first day of training when he steps away from the other two. She offers to let him move in with her if he wants.

He turns her down before she can finish talking. If he didn’t leave his home to live with the Yamanaka family, he’s not leaving for anyone.

***

Training for Team 7 is nothing like what Sasuke expected and everything like what he hoped for.

Mornings are spent in the offices for T & I. They get added to the inter department genin pool and sent as a group to help out and get cross trained in the departments. Morino-san puts a two hour time limit on how much time they can spend in a department a week when cryptology steals them for three days in a row just so they can have access to Haruno. 

Then there’s a break where Anko-sensei takes them to lunch which doubles as a lecture on the eating styles of different subcultures of a region with mandatory training in eating and talking in that style.

Lunch is followed by brutal physical training in Training Ground 44. They each get a slightly different training regime. Sakura has to expand her reserves and genjutsu training. Naruto has some kind of chakra control training that involves a bunch of forbidden techniques requiring insane chakra output. Sasuke’s training is a nightmare that involves doubling his weights and fighting multiple bunshin and summons at the same time. 

Then of course, it’s also Training Ground 44 so on top of their individual training regimes, they keep getting attacked by wild animals and plants. Anko-sensei calls their desperate attempts at survival their ‘break time’ and says that this sort of thing builds moral fiber. Sensei only intervenes if it looks like there’s going to be a killing or crippling blow that can’t be healed by a med-nin.

Then after all that brutality, Anko-sensei hands him off books or scrolls to read and quizzes them on the assignment from the night before.

Sasuke is constantly exhausted and he has never trained so hard in his life.

***

Lee’s team comes back to Konoha two weeks before they were expected and a good four weeks after team assignments. 

Sasuke is waiting at the front gate for them and doesn’t even think twice about dashing out to greet Lee and Gai-sensei when they’re become visible on the road.

Sasuke knows they won’t be able to do much more than a fist bump until the team turns in their reports, but he can at least keep them company until the report are filed and he can steal Lee away. Gai-sensei takes mission protocol very seriously.

Gai-sensei picks him up and throws him straight in the air to celebrate, just like when Sasuke was a baby at the Academy. Lee hugs him the minute Sasuke’s feet touch the ground. The three of them celebrate Sasuke’s new team by going for a night run to Tanzaku Gai and back. Sasuke’s in a good enough move to invite Tenten and Neji to come along but they decline.

“I’m glad you’re back!” Sasuke shouts, running to Lee’s left.

“Yosh!” Lee shouts back sounding delighted. Sasuke shouts it back, feeling like he’s seven again and he’s made the first friend he’s going to keep forever and will never have to share.

Gai yells something unintelligible about youth and Sasuke feels so light he thinks he could float off into the sky.

***

There’s a accident a couple weeks into training when a tiger takes a particularly vicious swipe at Sasuke that cuts deep across his lower abdomen. Anko-sensei has him in the hospital in minutes. Sakura and Naruto manage to get to the hospital in time for them to watch Sasuke get discharged to rest at home. 

Anko-sensei insists of carrying Sasuke home and his teammates insist on tagging along. He hurts too much to have much energy to protest at first, but then he kicks up a fuss when they try to go in.

Sasuke does his best to insist they can’t go inside and that he’s fine, but Anko-sensei tell him there’s no fucking way she’s going to leave him alone.

Anko-sensei picks the lock and going inside only to turn around a second later and say, “That’s not happening. Sasuke, you live with me now. Kids, sit on him if you have to but don’t let him get up. I’m going to pack a bag.”

Sasuke falls asleep in the middle of his attempts to sign his complete rage and spends what he’s told is three days slipping in and out of sleep.

***

Sasuke wakes up with Lee sleeping on the edge of his bed and knocks them both to the ground in his attempted to get out of bed and leave.

Sasuke tries to argue with Anko-sensei and insist that he be allowed to move back home. He tries running away to his old bedroom a few times but she just shows up and hauls him back to his room at the small, old style house with shogi walls and a modern style sub-basement five times the size of the top floor and twice as many rooms.

“It’s my home,” he snaps. “If I didn’t let Itachi drive me out, I’m not letting you drive me out.”

Anko-sensei has zero problems yelling back. “Your roof is rotten through in places. There is a gaping hole inside your front door where the floor has collapsed to the ground. There is actual fucking mold growing on your fucking walls. I wouldn’t let a rat live there. Your electricity isn’t running and the water pipes all leak. That’s a punishment! Not a home!”

“I’m fixing it! It needs a lot of upkeep,” he says, because she’s not wrong. “It’s fine.”

Anko-sensei gives him a level expression. “It’s really not.” She sighs and runs her hand through her hair. “Look kid, if it’s that important to you, we can move in there after I hire some people to do the repair work. We can go in and out so you can access your gear, but you are not allowed in that building without me. Am I clear?”

Sasuke knows this means that he won’t be able to access the things he needs for Daisuke or Saki, not without blowing their cover, but Anko-sensei’s deal is better than nothing.

“Fine,” he says grinding his teeth.

Anko snaps her fingers, “Oh, and Naruto’s coming too.”

“Why would he be coming?” Sasuke is this close to just throwing kunai at her in frustration.

Anko-sensei looks at him like he’s crazy. “Because he lives here? He’s been living here longer than you have? Seriously kid, get your head out of your ass. He’s in the room next to yours.”

“No, he’s not,” Sasuke snaps back, because there’s nothing in that room. Not even a futon. 

She drags him over to check and starts swearing when the room is empty. 

Lee looks at both of them over Sasuke’s shoulder. “Am I still spending the night?” Lee asks sheepingly.

***

Anko-sensei drags them all over the house looking for Naruto before they discover him sleeping in the greenhouse, surrounded by his belongings and overgrown plant beds. Apparently Naruto moved all his belongings into the greenhouse because, he sleepily explains from his futon, “You said I could have any room I want and I want this one. Mr. Ukki likes it.”

Sasuke falls asleep halfway back to his room and wakes up in a hallway next to Lee under a pile of blankets. Sasuke yawns and rolls over and goes back to sleep.

***

Living in Anko-sensei’s house full time without trying to run away is an adjustment. There’s more rooms than Sasuke knows what to do with and he doesn’t understand what half of these rooms are for. There’s also a ridiculous number of hidden compartments and the underground levels have a ridiculous number of hidden passages.

Anko-sensei inherited the house from her traitorous sensei and can move through it without making a sound. Sasuke keeps getting thrown off by the constantly shifting panels and losing his temper because no one should have to put up with bullshit rooms that appear and disappear without warning because Naruto and Anko-sensei keep shifting the panels inside the house. He takes to living off the tea service tucked into the main reception and the tomatoes he buys for breakfast at a corner store.

He refuses to admit to Anko-sensei that he hasn’t been able to find the kitchen. 

***

Making time for Daisuke and Saki is almost impossible. 

Daisuke tells his basketball friends that his lame parents are making help his grandma after school around the house. They take that as a reasonable excuse for why he cuts back on neighborhood basketball to only once or twice a month..

Sasuke had planned to do something similar with Saki, but when he shows up for his first Go session after being missing for two weeks, Makoto gives him a knowing look over the board and asks, “So who is he?”

Saki gives Makoto a confused look. 

“The boy you’ve been seeing,” she says knowingly.

Saki chokes, sputtering in a way that’s much more like Sasuke than her usual self. “I’m not-”

“Oh come on,” Makoto says with her eyes twinkling. “You’re a growing girl and I remember what it’s like to be that age. Sneaking out for dates while pretending to go to Go club. So who is he?”

Saki looks down, staring at the contents of the trash bin near their table, with a crumpled movie poster for some kind of giant lizard. “His name is Jira. Umm,” she glances back at the bottle of soda in the trash. “Ramune Jira. He’s, um, homeschooled.” She can feel her face turning bright red.

Sasuke as Saki is appalled. She has never lied so badly in her life.

Makoto leans over the board, her tone conspiratorial. “I promise if anyone comes asking, I’ll tell her you’ve been at every session without fail. Kids should have time to be kids.”

Saki looks down at the board. “Thank you, Makoto-san.”

***

“Lee?” Sasuke asks, during one of their pre-training runs. “Why don’t you live with Gai-sensei?” he asks.

Lee looks straight ahead as he answers. “Gai-sensei does not live alone. My presence would be a breach of classified information.” 

Sasuke nudges him with his elbow and flashes a small sympathetic smile. “We can share Anko-sensei’s house. I’m pretty sure ten genin could move into the basement and she would never notice.”

Lee sputters at the dishonor of moving into someone’s home without permission and Sasuke laughs, spurring him on by suggesting underhanded way they could trick Anko-sensei into letting him move it.

***

Their first D-rank is a disaster. They just need to get all the items on a shopping list. It should have been easy.

Only some of the stores refused to serve Naruto. Some of them refused to serve Anko-sensei. Some of them refused to let them in at all. After five rejections, Anko-sensei pulled their group aside and told them to change into someone else and reconvene in twenty minutes.

Sakura dresses right but she can’t manage to keep the same foreign accent for five straight minutes.

Naruto just shows up as the Sexy-No-Jutsu version of himself and tells them to call him Naruko because he’s a beautiful lady. Sasuke is genuinely offended that such a shit disguise actually works, especially when Naruko and Naruto have all the same facial features and whisker marks on their faces. Oh, and also the same fucking clothes.

They actually complete the mission, only to arrive at the clients home and have the door slammed on their face because the client hired a genin team, not sa collection of traitors. Anko-sensei’s only reaction is to blink and tell them to come along back to the mission room.

Naruto actually throws all the groceries he’s collected at the clients door and yells something about it being a stupid mission anyway. 

Sasuke is too angry to talk but Sakura’s angry enough to talk for all of them.

Sakura rages in a way that Sasuke’s never seen before. She shrieks and waves her arm without compunction or apology if she hits a stranger walking past them as she rages about their client until Anko-sensei stops them half way down the road and says, “Sakura, I understand that you are angry but the only thing that vapid bitch wanted to do was hurt us. We can ignore her for the steaming pile of bullshit she is or we can get upset and let her win by letting her hurt us.”

Sakura deflates. 

“And while I fully support you calling her out on being a fucking piece of garbage,” Anko-sensei says calmly, “I’ve gotta ask you to reel in the arm movements. You’ve been subconsciously reinforcing your angry gestures with your chakra and you are close to breaking someone’s ribs.”

Sakura murmurs an apology and turns back into her usual polite shadow.

Iruka sensei is at the mission desk when they report failing a D-rank. They get a horrible dressing down that gets even worse when it become clear that it’s their first D-rank. Their team picture gets taken and placed on cork board that the mission desk keeps to shame people who fail at D and E rank mission.

Anko-sensei doesn’t let them take another D-rank for a month.

***

Their training shifts again three months into D-rank missions. They’re pulled off of pool rotation for focused training sessions twice a week. Anko-sensei forces them to sit down and look at book after book or photographs with different expressions and micro-expressions of people’s faces. When she decides they have them well enough, she includes shoulders. Arms. Torsos. Hips. Legs. Feet. Then combinations of people. What are they thinking? What are they feeling?

It’s strange to Sasuke to sit through these classes tight lipped. He had this information scrawled in his mother journals with drawings and descriptions, but not photographs. It’s strange to him to realize that technology is changing so fast that in time between her training and his, photographs have become common enough to use for training. It’s so much easier to understand his clan’s teachings when the building blocks are laid in front of him in bright, detailed color.

***

Naruto and Sasuke walk back from their last D-rank together, waving off Sakura when she reminds them that she’s having dinner with her grandparents from out of town. Anko-sensei tells them she has to run a quick errand and tells them she meets them at the house. It’s the first time she’s ever said anything like that and they can’t help but be on alert on their long walk from the mission desk in the middle of town out to Anko-sensei’s home

The house and tiny compound is at the edge of the forest, tucked in between Nara lands and Senju lands. It means that the grounds are a combination of tall grasses and large Hirashima trees scattered in between smaller trees and bushes. The branches block out the sun at all times and lets the moonlight in when the angle was just right. Large flat rocks dot the area closest to the house and Sasuke usually sees at least three different summons basking in the warmth during the heat of the day when they have time off.

Sasuke goes in through the front door first and he is shocked to find the house filled with ANBU with Anko-sensei laughing on one of floor pillows. 

“Surprise!” she shouts as Naruto walks in through the door.

Sasuke immediately steps in front of Naruto, spreading his arms to keep Naruto safely behind.

ANBU Boar puts down his beer and bows toward Naruto. “We are so sorry.” Boar keeps his head down as he continues.” We were never allowed to speak to you when you were a child and we weren’t allowed to contact you in any way once you started at the Academy.”

ANBU Hare gets up from where he’s leaning on the wall. “However, there is an exception for ANBU members to talk to direct family members of current ANBU so long as an identity is not compromised.”

Naruto pushes against Sasuke’s left arm. Sasuke tries to tuck Naruto further behind him.

“No, Sasuke. It’s okay. Just-” Naruto pushes Sasuke to the side and runs right at ANBU Wolf in the corner who had stayed in the corner, head down and shoulders slumped. Naruto throws his arms tightly around Wolf’s shoulds and buries his face in Wolf’s neck. He murmurs something Sasuke can’t make out, and he hears Wolf’s low voice say, “We are all so proud of the great shinobi you’ve turned out to be.”

One by one the ANBU take turns, sweeping Naruto into tight hugs as he laughs and yells in delight. The masks stay firmly in place but Sasuke’s pretty sure more than one of them are crying.

Sasuke remembers now, about Naruto saying that his ANBU had taught him to sign and he knows that Naruto was an orphan. These people are probably the closest thing Naruto has to family and Anko-sensei found a way to reunite them.

Sasuke feels a sharp stab of rage, hot and blinding and overwhelming. It closes around his throat, too tight for him to breath and his eyes burn.

He turns around and walks straight for Ino’s house.

Anko-sensei calls for Sasuke to wait and runs out to him, turning him around to face her with a hand on his shoulder. She starts to say something and then searches his face carefully. Her face falls and she looks apologetic when she says, “I understand. They might be here all night. Do you want to pack a bag?” 

Sasuke is too angry to respond. His expression must be enough because Anko-sensei nods and takes a step back. “Be safe.”

He goes to home to Ino’s and spends the next few hours painting her nails over and over again until there are tiny bouquets of Yellow roses and Peach Irises on the purple background Ino loves best. Ino declares it a challenge for the best manicure and spends an annoying amount of time drawing ivy vines around red hoary stock and magenta zinnias because she’s trying to one up them. Ino drags her father into her room to judge and Sasuke’s so relieved that Inoichi isn’t at Anko-sensei’s house that he doesn’t even care about the tie.

***

Their team gets one free day to themselves every eight days of training. Every time their days off match up with Team 10’s days off, they all meet up for lunch.

It starts off as just Sasuke, Ino and Sakura at the Yamanaka house but Naruto follows them one day from home and then following them. After it happens twice in a row, Ino insist on them going out and bringing Shikamaru and Chouji. 

Sasuke knows the only reason they all go out to lunch is so that it’s not so glaring when Sasuke doesn’t speak around her teammates. Whatever happened after the massacre, left him unable to talk around people or places he didn’t feel safe. He can talk around Ino, Inoichi, Lee, Gai-sensei, Anko-sensei, Sakura and Naruto. That’s it. Seven people and the minute someone else shows up, his throat closes and he can’t get a word out. So Inoichi taught him ANBU signs, because he knew it better than Konoha standard and Sasuke picks up Konoha standard from the Academy and his therapist.

Ino translates for him at these kinds of outings, rattling his words off to the group and spitting back her own response in the same breath. Chouji and Sakura were both used to interfering whenever Ino and Sasuke’s rivalry became a little two vicious. Shikamaru would only interfere if they were bordering on property damage.

“Asuma-sensei is showing us new jutsus. He says the best shinobi know how to do a bit of everything.” Ino cover her mouth with mock horror. “I’m sorry if I was insensitive to your condition. I know how you sometimes have performance issues.”

Sasuke winces, because that was under the belt even for Ino. He leans forward, putting a hand over Ino’s wrist to distract her while he slips laxative in her drink. No performance issues here, he signs on handed. The best shinobi are unseen, he signs, making expression of mocking example of apologetic. Must be hard to stay unseen with that blotchy complexion, he signs, this time using both hands.

Sakura gives Sasuke a dirty look from Ino’s other side and reaches across the table for the teapot, knocking over Ino’s glass. The angle of the spill makes most of the water flow towards Sasuke. “Sorry,” Sakura says, apologizing to Ino over and over again. “I’m sorry Ino-chan, I was distracted.”

Shikamaru sits up from where he was discretely napping on the table and sighs. 

“It’s fine Sakura.” Ino says, reaching reaching for the napkins. “How are you doing as the shining star on team Loser?”

Sakura beams at Ino so brightly that Sasuke has to remind himself that making gagging noises is childish and focuses on eating his ramen instead. She rattles off stories about Team 7 ( and her) pulled off the most amazing D-rank gossip gathering mission while Naruto chimes in with glowing comments about Sakura.

Sasuke waits until the three of them are focusing on a diagram Sakura starts drawing on the paper from her supply pouch. It’s really amazing, Sasuke signs at Chouji and Shikamaru, the way that Naruto hasn’t noticed that Sakura’s too gay to function.

Shikamaru chokes on the water he was sipping. Chouji lets out on ugly laugh and stares at Sasuke in disbelief.

“Share the joke!” Ino demands.

Yamanaka Ino, Sasuke signs deadpan.

She shrieks and lunges for him over the table.

***

Sasuke was once told that he would grow out of his petty hatred for Neji. 

That was bullshit. Sasuke has grown into his hatred of Neji and he thinks he wears it well. He’s pleasant and polite for Gai-sensei and Lee’s sake, and the second they are out of the way, he radiates all the killing intent he can muster. 

Neji responds to this by ignoring him. That’s fine. It’s just a matter of time before they get assigned to a mission together and Neji can trip face first onto an enemy’s kunai. 

By accident of course.

***

Anko decides to shake things up during their by making them spar against each other. “First up, Sakura and Sasuke. Sasuke, keep your weight doubled. Sakura, no visible scarring.”

Sasuke knows he sounds like an asshole but he can’t help it., “That’s not fair. Her genjutsu is useless. She’s nowhere near my level. This match is a joke.” He is up to fighting six bunshin of sensei at the same time. Fighting just Sakura seems like an insult to both of them.

Sakura looks furious at the comment, “Do you have any idea,” she rages. “How much training and control it takes to get exactly enough points in Taijutsu to stay above the cut off from getting dropped from the course but keep the dead last position?”

Sasuke scowls at her. “I train with Gai-sensei,” he says. “And Lee.”

“You keep saying that like it should mean something! I don’t know who they are,” Sakura replies, crossing her arms in annoyance.

“What do you- It’s Lee. He’s my best friend!” He snaps, arms moving immediately into the Uchiha taijutsu stance. “He’s hung out with us all the time.”

“You hung out without me?” Naruto says in a hurt tone. Sasuke and Sasuke both shout at him to shut up. 

“I never bothered to learn his name. He’s a creep.” She glares at Sasuke, holding out one hand to start the spar.

Sasuke turns up his nose at the gesture and mentally moves Sakura just below Neji on his list of people he hates. No one insults Lee.

“Whatever, I don’t even need taijutsu to kick your ass,” she says, baring her teeth. Her hands flash through the hand signs for a jutsu, starting with horse and monkey, the standard seals for basic mind affecting genjutsu.

Sasuke scoffs and motions for her to attack him.

She crosses her arms tighter and glares at him in response.

Sasuke starts to move towards her and then trips. There’s a worm cycling both his legs. Sasuke starts to pull it off when a bird goes after him from overhead, clawing at his scalp. A second bird darks right for his head. Sasuke swats at them at the same time that he tries to unpeel the worm. He keeps tripping and falling over from one or the other.

A swarm of ant starts to crawl out from the underbrush towards him, even with Naruto,Sakura and Anko-sense closer to their mound. He doesn’t know what’s happening, but he’s pretty sure Sakura is responsible.

“Okay Sakura, it’s not funny anymore. I don’t want to punch a bird,” Sasuke snaps, running in a circle around them with his knees high to avoid getting grabbed from below. The ground keeps rippling with enthusiastic worms.

Sakura scowl, “Not until you admit I win, Sasuke-teme.”

Sasuke will admit that Dead Last Haruno is a winner over his dead body. He darts in, giving her a quick blow to the back of her head the knocks her out.

It turns out that knocking Sakura unconscious is not enough to stop the animals from attacking him and Sasuke spends the next couple minutes trying to outrun what feels like half of the forest of death until Anko-sensei wakes Sakura up. Anko-sensei declares Sakura the winner of their match and Sasuke spends the rest of the day sulking.

He takes it as a lesson to never underestimate his opponents.

His first spar against Naruto is just as annoying. Naruto makes an bushin who are just as shitty at fighting as he is, but he makes swarms. Sasuke can pop them with a hard enough blow, but it Naruto can replace them as fast as Sasuke can end them. That first fight also ends in a tie, Sasuke eventually collapsing from an extended fight with his training weights doubled and Naruto eating dirt from the eventual chakra exhaustion.

***

Naruto asks Sasuke to help him with his room on one of their days off. Naruto has him pull all the weeds out of the flower beds in the greenhouse and move then into new planters instead of burning the weeds the way Sasuke’s mother taught him. They clean the floor, aerate the beds, and mix fertilizer with the soil.

“Why do you like plants so much?” Sasuke asks.

Naruto doesn’t look at him as he talks. Instead, his hands steadily work at mixing soil. “When I was a kid, I had a dog. There was a stray that followed me home. He got out in October during the festival and uh-” his voice cuts out for a moment. “I didn’t have a dog anymore. Anyway, the old man gave me Mr. Ukki iand we’ve been best pals ever since.”

Sasuke doesn’t know what to do with that. He turns his back to Naruto, and pulls out what he hopes is a weed from one of the flower beds. “Hn.”

They work for a couple hours before Naruto says they should stop for a water break. After a couple minutes of arguing over who should lead the way, they figure out that neither of them have any clue where the kitchen is located in the house.

***  
Naruto flops on his back and makes a sad groaning noise. “Sensei is training us too hard.”

Sasuke hums in agreement. He’s pretty sure he can’t move. 

Sakura kicks at his foot a little where she’ laying on her back. “We aren’t going to make it to the chunin exams at this rate.”

“Hn.” Sasuke closes his eyes and wonders how he’s going to be able to walk home.

Sakura’s voice sounds almost casual when she says, “Hinata said her sensei eased up on them when she started dating Ino’s sensei.”

“Do you think Ino’s sensei will date sensei if we ask?” Naruto asks, voice shrill and hopefully.

Sasuke hears a soft slap of skin on skin. “Idiot,” Sakura says weakly. “We should sensei up on a date with someone who’s single like Gai-sensei or Iruka-sensei or Ino’s dad.”

“Not Dad,” Sasuke snaps. “Never Ino’s dad.” Sasuke snaps with more force than he knew he had in him and them thought for a moment. “I think Gai-sensei might be seeing someone. He keeps encouraging me and Lee to follow our hearts so we find happiness like he has. Sorry Sakura.”

Sakura groans. “Not your fault,” she says after a minute. “What about Hare?”

“That’s really smart, Sakura,” Naruto says. “ANBU Hare is totally her type. We should set her up with Hare!”

Sakura’s sits up in a terrifying burst of speed. “I have a plan.”

***  
The plan is a disaster and they flee to Inoichi’s office to hide from her wrath

“You really shouldn’t wind her up,” he says, laughing when they try to explain what happened. “She’s the best teacher you kids could have ever had.”

They all look at each other. Sasuke doesn’t even both signing anything, he just raises both eyebrows and wait.

Inoichi sighs and pulls out an a bingo book from Iron, opening the entry to Anko-sensei where the S class marker was placed next to five different pictures - none of which looked like sensei at all. Sasuke leans over Sakura’s should and blanches at the skill set. 

“Mitarashi Anko was taken by Orochimaru on what she believed to be a long term training mission for reconnaissance. They had ANBU, hunter nin, and bounty hunters searching for them for seven months and the only reason they found her at all was because Orochimaru drugged her into a coma.”

Inoichi gets up and opens his office door, “Just, keep that in mind next time you decide to try and fix her up on a blind date.”

Naruto nods hard enough to shake his hitai-ate lose. “Got it, we need to get someone even cooler than the Hokage next time. Only the best for our sensei.”

Sasuke does not want to risk trying again, but he’s pretty sure the speculative gleam in Sakura’s eye means he’s not getting out of this.

***

No one is more genuinely shocked than Naruto when he turns out to be freakishly good at reading people’s motivations. Not just that, he’s freakishly good at flipping people.

Naruto volunteers to be the first of their genin team to talk to a prisoner, and within twenty minutes, the C-rank criminal is telling Naruto his entire life story and agreeing to help Konoha because it’s the right thing to do.

“Even Morino-san looks impressed when Anko-sensei drags him in to watch.

***

Ino somehow manages to con Kiba into taking her on her first date, and she demands to be attended by Sasuke and Sakura while she gets ready. Sasuke is baffled that she wants to date Kiba of all people, but Ino quickly explains that she picked Kiba because he’s disposable and his mother has trained him to be terrified and respectful of strong women in equal measures. She delivers this speech in a cold calculating tone that makes Sasuke suspicious that she’s practiced it.

He’s can’t help but approve of her logic, even if he’s baffled that she’s ‘training’ herself on dating when they are twelve. Ino just hums at him and tells him that she’s surprised he’s ignored this part of his kunoichi training. Sakura makes a horrified face. Sasuke’s clearly not the only one who hadn’t given that aspect of kunoichi work much thought.

Ino makes them watch her try on a painful number of outfits. 

“The short eggplant dress. Why are you hurting us like this? I thought you liked Sakura,” Sasuke whines from where he’s watching upside down on Ino’s bed. Ino just ignores him and insists that Sakura hand her another clothing combination. This goes on for a painfully long amount of time.

“Fine!” Ino snaps. “I’ll try on the stupid dress but only because it’s the last combination I haven’t tried.” Sakura waits until Ino’s distracted with the dress to kick most of Ino’s shoes under the bed so the only visible pair at the sandals that match the embroidery on the dress.

The dress is perfect, obviously, because Sasuke knows Ino and knows what she’s want to wear to something simple that makes her coloring look fantastic with a hemline that’s a little racy.

He also knows she’s nervous, and that if he tells her what she should wear, she’ll spend twenty minutes trying on combinations out of spite until she’s so full of spite and annoyance that she’ll completely forget to be nervous.

Sakura and Sasuke sneak out to the edge of the stairs when Ino goes downstairs to meet Kiba. They hear him stumble to compliment her. 

Sasuke and Sakura high five the air in front of each other and smile. 

***

Alright you little shits,” Anko-sensei says when she spots them both in the entrance, “Why the hell aren’t you eating any groceries? I keep buying enough for three and half the stuff keeps going back because no one is eating it. Are you picky eaters of something?”

They look at each other. Naruto looks back at Anko-sensei and says, “We can’t find the kitchen.”

“You’ve been living here for half a year. What do you mean you don’t know where the kitchen is? It’s the first room going into the basement.”

They look at each other. Sasuke looks back at Anko-sensei and signs, if that’s the kitchen then where is the refrigerator?

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

***

Sakura is brilliant at seeing patterns. She can look over a set of financial data and figure out from memory if the numbers are covering something up or if they are showing something else. They manage to tie a guy to a drug ring because of his usually large grocery purchases and delivery expenses. All that extra food had to be going somewhere.

She has a knock for looking at crime information and finding patterns to tie them together.

She reads informants and criminal like a book, sitting on the other side of the interrogation glass and reading every expression and microexpression like a story and she can pull together rivers of information where a person might have given her drops of words.

She and Naruto work so seamlessly. She asks questions until she draws out someone’s life and Naruto takes that life and finds a way to tie it to Konoha or their loved ones or whatever it takes to make things better because, oddly enough, Naruto seems to genuinely want to help them help themselves. That’s how he flips people.

Sasuke has only ever been best at being other people. Every time he walks into the interrogation room, he has to be someone else just so he can talk through an interrogation. He can’t flip them as well as Naruto or read them as deeply as Sakura, but Sasuke has an instinct for asking the right questions. He asks everything that Sakura hasn’t learned to ask and gets the ammunition that Naruto needs to change their mind.

The three of them work best together.

***

Anko-sensei tells them to build aliases for T & I use and tells them that they can build anything within reason, but it has to be someone that they can reasonably fund and reasonably make false identification for.

Naruto picks a civilian farm hand. An alias that gets him out of the walls and can easy let him move around fire country collecting information.

Sakura decides to be a missing nin. She writes up a neat little bio as a missing nin from Grass, of all places. Too small to require Konoha to extradite but just large enough that even a Grass nin wouldn’t be able to call her out for being an imposter.

Sasuke, having spent five years in T & I thanks to Ino and Inoichi, decides to use his personal knowledge of village gossip to be a dick. He write his alias’ name as Morino Keisuke and describes him as the spoiled nephew of Morino-san who is a Genin Corp wash out and is suspected to maintain ties with his father’s criminal connections. 

Anko-sensei reviews the paperwork and makes minor edits. Naruto is raised by a single father instead of growing up as an orphan. Sakura’s village changes from Grass to Sand as that village is a much closer ally. Anko-sensei gets to Sasuke’s page and laughs until she cries. “Just for that, I’m going to see if the records department will push it through.” 

They do. Mostly because Sasuke waits until it’s their rotation in the department and files all the paperwork himself, then gets the department head’s authorization stamp on the paperwork when Nakagawa-san is distracted.

Anko-sensei makes sure they each spend at least one day every two or three weeks moving around the village or working just enough to maintain the alias and doesn’t even pretend for a second that she won’t follow them to take embarrassing pictures of her team.

Sasuke takes a ridiculous amount of pleasure visiting his Ibiki-jii and acting like a complete spoiled brat almost the entire time. Morino-san behaves like he is physical pain whenever Morino Keisuke does something too vapid but he still goes along with it. After a weeks of it, Ibiki actually starts setting Sasuke up in public to do something outrageously stupid just to see if the people nearby will believe it.


	4. chunin exam

“Alright kids,” Anko-sensei says as she herds them into the mission desk room. “You are getting one C-rank.”

Sasuke perks up. If they had been assigned one more rumor mission he would have done something drastic. Naruto doesn’t even try to contain himself. He starts jumping and cheering before Anko-sensei is done talking.

“Anyway,” she shouts, “I paid off Raido to set one aside for us so for fucks sake don’t get us on the corkboard again.” Anko sensei starts to explain that the C-rank is to find out if their client’s husband is cheating on her but Naruto interrupts her halfway through.

“You said this was a C-rank!” he yells, pointing a finger in her face.

Anko-sensei sighs and looks up at the sky for strength. “I knew this was going to happen.” hse says. “Yes, this is a C-rank.”

“We’ve had dozens of these D-ranks,” Sakura says. She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. Sasuke isn’t sure if she’s actually crying or faking it in desperation. “I can’t keep pretending to walk into rooms by accident.”

“Yeah, but this time it’s in the Land of Iron so we’ll probably have to fight a bunch of bandits on the way there and back,” Anko-sensei shrugs. “But if you don’t want to fight bandits.

NO, Sasuke signs before she can change her mind. We like foreign D-ranks.

“Awesome. It’s gonna be three weeks. Sakura we’re headed to your place to pack first. Get your mom to make some of that homemade dango.”

***

Leaving Konoha as a kunoichi team is harder than Sasuke thought. They have to pack enough stuff for three weeks of travel and pack travel clothes and persona clothes. 

Sensei goes through Sakura’s pack personally, going item by item to discuss it’s necessity or lack of necessity. Sensei has them linger at Sakura’s house long enough for Sakura’s parents to make lunch for everyone, the glutton, and then leads them back to the compound to pack. 

Naruto’s room is a full functioning greenhouse with his clothes and things scattered in between the rows of flower beds, his own bed tucked into the awning connecting it to the house. They spend most of the time trying to find Naruto’s stuff to pack before sensei gives up and drags Naruto’s pack through the house to get things from her own stores.

Sasuke doesn’t even let them into his room. He grabs his go bag from the room Lee uses when he stays over and holds it out to Anko-sensei for inspection. Sensei complains bitterly about losing the opportunity to paw through his things but she doesn’t actually force her way in through his door.

They head out before sunset and pass a couple other teams headed home.

***

They don’t meet any bandits. Not one. Even Anko-sensei looks bored and desperate during their trek through Rain country to Iron. She starts letting them shout and burn fires with wet wood. Nothing.

They reach their destinations in various stages of disappointment and Sasuke feels downright mutinous, because just once he’d like to go all out on someone without worrying about guilt if he hurt them.

The C-rank is easy enough. The client is convinced that her husband is cheating on her. They had an arranged marriage, but she refuses to let him make a fool of her and she wants the name of the woman to ‘resolve to situation.’ 

Sasuke’s pretty sure that means she’s planning on killing the mistress.

Sasuke, Sakura and Naruto all get jobs in various places of the household. Sasuke snags a spot as a gardener’s assistant, Naruto scores a job as one of the cleaning, and Sakura starts as a kitchen helper and talks her way into a second assistant position with the clients husband. Anko-sensei says she’s watching them from the forest surrounding the house but Sasuke’s pretty sure that she’s just using this as an excuse to sleep late and drink on the job.

Sakura reports back to them that the client’s husband keeps buying elaborate gifts and then returning them. It takes a few weeks of snooping but they figure out that he’s not buying them because he has a mistress. He’s buying them because he’s in love with his wife but he’s too nervous to give them to her.

Naruto doesn’t handle this news well, and when they report their findings to the client, he waits until they are done reporting and drags her husband into the room to tell him why their client hired them. 

Sakura is mortified. Sasuke is mortified. 

Naruto pushes him at her and tells him that she wouldn’t have gone to any of these lengths if she didn’t love him to. THe client and her husband seem to be in their own world as they fall into each other’s arms, murmuring things that make Sasuke turn bright red and want to bleach his brain.

He is too young for this.

Anko-sensei stumbles into the room, just long enough to apologize for failing the mission and haul them out of the room. Sakura protests that they succeeded at the mission and that really, they can’t all be held responsible for Naruto going rogue.

Apparently, they can especially since their only instruction was to make sure the client’s husband did not find out she hired a nina team to investigate it. One rule. One fucking rule, Sasuke signs angrily to Naruto as they head home.

They take the long way back. When they get to Konoha, there’s a moment of confusion when they find out the mission was marked as successful and the client sent a bonus. 

Sensei tells them to take the win and never tell anyone they failed a glorified D rank.

***

***

Sasuke as Daisuke is appalled when Tamaki stops in the middle of one of their basketball games to catcall a girl. He would never think of treating his mother like that and he can’t imagine imagine what he would do as Sasuke if anyone spoke to Ino or Anko-sensei like that.

But Daisuke doesn’t do what Sasuke does. That’s the very core of Daisuke, but he doesn’t have to stay that way.

Sasuke thinks for a moment as himself and then goes back to being Daisuke.

“Come on, man,” Daisuke whines, “That’s so unoriginal. Check this out.”

Daisuke walks up to the edge of the court and catches the eye of a girl a little older than them, wagging his eyebrows. “Hey girl, are you an inspiration? Because you make me want to be a better person.”

The girl pauses briefly to stare at Daisuke in disbelief and then keeps walking.

Yulan pushes his glasses up, “What are you doing?”

“I’m being cool,” Daisuke says, smirking. He calls out to another girl, “Hey girl, are you living your best life? Because you look happy and fulfilled!”

The girl actually lets out a trill of laughter as she passes them, glancing back towards them as she makes her way down the street.

Tamaki watched her go, looking like he had just experienced an epiphany. “She was into that.” he says, blinking rapidly.

Yunlan looks at both of them and crosses his arms. “No.”

“Mmmhmm,” Daisuke hums.

“Like, I could actually get a girl like that.” Tamaki says, looking out onto the street.

“Mmmhmm,” Daisuke hums again, snatching the ball from under Tamaki’s arm.

Yulan glares at Daisuke, “We have one rule. Don’t encourage Tamaki. That’s it. Stop this right now.”

“So are you gonna keep losing this game, or what?” Daisuke says, walking right past Yulan and Tamaki as he dribbles the ball towards their net.

***

Lee spends more time living in the room next to Sasuke’s than he does in his own shoebox genin apartment. It’s not hard. For every week Lee’s team spends in Konoha, they spend three weeks out on courier missions. Lee spends at least five of those days training with Sasuke. 

Sasuke’s pretty sure Lee’s team isbeing trained up to be front line unit or search and rescue. Gai is training them to run into danger and fight when they get there until every single comrades are safe.

Lee is his best friend in the world and he is running right into danger and Sasuke doesn’t know what to do about other that train as hard as he can. 

He tries to remind himself that a good kunoichi eliminates risk before it ever becomes danger. That’s the way he can keep Lee safe. 

***

Their sensei is supposed to be working on Konoha’s chunin exams, and she sends her summons to work on them with taijutsu and poisons. Sasuke’s undercover work is flourishing but his sparring needs help. He can’t keep pushing himself without training fast opponents.

Anko-sensei agrees to let him take off from their team sessions early whenever Gai-sensei’s team is in town. He spends more time training one on one with Gai when he gets the chance, pushing himself in ways he can’t do when he’s fighting multiple opponents at normal speeds.

Sasuke knows the bitter truth and that’s if he’s too slow, he’s an easy target for other jutsu. He’s learned his lesson after months of sparring with Sakura and Naruto. Even if he is so much better at them, one wrong move, one shesistation, one good distraction and it doesn’t matter if he’s technically better. 

Sasuke can’t be strong so he has to be fast. Faster. The fastest.

He also grudging admits that he also needs to spend more time training on tactics than just his physical capacities. Fighting against Sakura has taught him that a good plan can beat him every time if she can get him flustered. 

He starts making time to go to the Go club as Saki more often, claiming she broke up with Jira as the reason for resuming her former schedule. He also starts dropping by the park as Saki to play Shogi against some of the regulars.

This almost backfires when he wins a round only for Shikamaru to sit down across from his board to replace the last opponent. He plays a two hour match against Shikamaru that day and has a vicious thrill when he loses the match but confirms that Shikamaru has no idea who he is.

***

Sasuke starts dropping hints around Anko-sensei that they should to team training with one of the other genin teams. He’s mostly angling for an opportunity where he can have a sanctioned opportunity to beat Neji until his hair falls off.

It backfires. Anko-sensei tells them that they’ll be doing team versus team training exercises and then sets them up to be the targets for trainee ANBU teams to hunt down. They spend all their ‘team training time’ after that tagging each other through Konoha and hiding as various different civilians, trying desperately to keep from getting tagged by the ANBU trainees to various levels of success. Sasuke will never admit his best hiding place is in a port-a-potty. Mostly because he knows Sakura would steal it out from under him. 

Lee is completely delighted for Sasuke which takes all the joy out of bitterly complaining about fighting and evading ANBU. Instead, he takes to going into Naruto’s room and rearranging all the flower beds as a way of venting his frustration. 

***

Naruto whines so much about not getting to follow Sasuke when he goes out on one of his kunoichi training sessions that Sasuke finally snaps and agrees to let him come but only if he transforms into a six year old version of Naruko.

He takes Naruto with him to the changing station around the corner from the basketball court and shows Naruto how to use the space to switch personas.

He pops out of the station as Daisuke and introduces everyone to Naruko, his new step sister. He makes Naruko sit in the bleachers while they play until she screams so loudly about wanting to play that he ducks out of the game to show her how to dribble on the court.

Naruto spends more time tripping over the oversized clothes on Naruko than he does actually learning how to play. 

Sasuke wants to shove his face in the pavement for weaseling his way into one of the only places that Sasuke feels in safe. Sasuke as Daisuke instead takes the time to cuff his little sister’s pants and tie her shirt to the side so she’ll stop tripping on her clothes. He picks her up off the ground so she can dunk the ball through the hoop and runs a lap with her on his shoulder, cheering her skills.

***

C-ranks for Team 7 are basically just D-ranks that involve going on long and annoying trips. Their first bandit encounter goes so good it’s bad. After months of fighting giant tigers and killers bees, there’s something scary about how they knock out all their attackers with on hit. Even Sakura manages to knock one out with a kick when he drops from a tree in front of her. They wait to see if any of them get back up. They don’t.

“We didn’t even get to use a jutsu!” Naruto complains. Naruto makes two Kage Bunshin just to agree with his whining.

Sasuke does not know who he pissed off to get stuck with that idiot.

“Sensei, did I kill him?” Sakura asks, looking at her kicked bandit in horror. Blood is seeping at his mouth. He didn’t look like he was breathing. 

Anko-sensei shrugged. 

Sakura flinched. She covered her face with her hands.

“Oh! Shit, okay, I’ll check. ” Anko sensei breaks off a piece of a tree branch and pokes the bandit in the face. The man’s body twitches. “He’s alive,” she says.

Sakura starts crying.

Sasuke looks at Naruto for help but he seems just as clueless as Sasuke. 

Sasuke pats Sakura on the back and steps away when Anko signs at him to step aside and scoops Sakura up like a baby. She carries Sakura all the way to their camp site and makes them stay there an extra day while she talks Sakura through whatever is going on in her head.

***

Sasuke doesn’t get it. Even if she had killed him, they would all have their first kills eventually.

Naruto corners him alone, when they’re in the middle of the mission, pretending to be waiters to find out if a client’s wife has been having secret meetings with his ex-wife. He pulls Sasuke into the cleaning closet.

Sasuke closes the door shut behind them. 

“Why are you being such a bastard to Sakura? I thought we were past this.” Naruto says, speaking softly but not whispering. It had taken them a while to break him of that habit.

Sasuke groans. “I’m not being weird. Sakura’s being weird.”

“She’s scared. She thought she killed someone when she didn’t mean to,” Naruto grabs Sasuke’s shoulders. “Haven’t you been scared to hurt someone?”

Sasuke looks at each hand and deliberate knocks them off his body one by one. “My mother taught me that all ninja kill. We kill so that our homes, our families, and our mission partners are safe and well. When we stop killing to protect people, we become monsters.” 

Sasuke ducks his head a little to look Naruto straight in the eyes. “I’m just treating her like I always treat her. That’s not weird. You’re weird. You’re being clingy and you keep staring at her all the time. You stop being weird.”

Naruto growls and pushes him. Sasuke growls right back.

The close door opens to Sakura, red eyed and irritated. “Stop fighting this instant,” she snaps. “If you cost us this mission, I am going to beat you both into the ground.” she snarls.

Sasuke gives Naruto a smug look. Naruto growls at him.

Sasuke punches both of them in the arm.

***

“The chunin exams are coming up!” Anko-sensei says cheerfully, when they’ve reconvened in Anko-sensei’s T&I office for their morning training.

Sasuke looks at the giant poster on the wall advertising the chunin exams. It had been hanging for more than a month.

“Are you nominating us for the chunin exams?” Naruto asks.

Anko-sensei doubles over laughing. “Ha, nice joke kid. Yeah, no. You fetuses aren’t leaving my sight until I feel you can handle an A-rank mission on your own. Maybe S-class.”

Sakura groans. “C’mon sensei, we’re gonna be like, sixteen before that happens.”

Speak for yourself, Sasuke signs.

“You precious babies are getting your first B-rank.”

***

“We usually assign a pair of jounin to monitor the foreign genin teams during the team, but this year Sand is sending their jinchuuriki so I volunteered us to watch them with you guys during the day shift. Hayate’s going to do the night shift. I figured it might be a good idea for you three to take turns watching the jinchuuriki.”

Anko-sensei holds up a photograph of a red headed boy with green eyes. “This is Gaara. He likes murder, terrifying the masses, and standing on rooftops in the middle of the night. Ibiki’s told me that I need to issue you a warning.”

“Stay away from him?” Sakura guesses.

“Stay away from him,” Anko-sensei says, pointing a firm finger at Naruto. “Do not under any circumstances use your weird power of persuasion to make him leave Sand for Konoha.”

“What,” Naruto squawks in protest. 

Sakura elbows him. “We promise.”

“You can fix his emotional problems, but you can’t keep him.” Anko-sensei says sternly. “No.”

***

They take turns flipping through Gaara’s record, trying to take in as much as possible for their first B-rank assignment.

“Look at this,” Sakura murmurs, tapping her finger over a footnote. “It says here that they think he managed to kill twelve people at once with his sand on that mission, bringing the kill count for that mission to twenty once you add in the kills from his teammates.”

Sakura squints down at the numbers, copying something on a spare piece of paper and says offhand, “Did they ever tell you how many accomplices Itachi had?”

Naruto inhales sharply.

There were no accomplices, Sasuke signs. His whole body feels strung tight. 

Sakura doesn’t look up. Naruto glances between both of them, “He um, he said it was just Itachi dattebayo.”

Sakura’s nose scrunches an she turns another page. “Are you sure? I always assumed the details were classified. Even if he was an ANBU, there’s no way he could have killed fifty people without setting off some kind of alarm.”

He did it alone, Sasuke signs.

Sakura glances up and then looks up a second time, freezing when she sees him. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m really sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”

I don’t want to talk about it,” he signs. Sasuke reached over the table and snatches the file out of her hands.

He looks down at the page and tries to focus on it until their sensei stops by the small study room to drag them out for training. It isn’t until he has to hand back the file that he realizes the page he has been staring at is upside down.

***

A messager from the Genin Corp warns them when the sand siblings come into town. They go out on the road to intercept so they can be casually visible having lunch as they come into town.

They were only supposed to do a quick visual recon while Anko-sensei monitored from afar, but the Sand team stops right in front of their picnic spot to heckle them.

The blond one looks them over. “Isn’t this cute? Konoha has a little kunoichi team. Let me guess, the blond one is flashy jock, the black haired one is their tsundere guard, and pinkie here must be honey trap for the lesbians and men.” The blond girl from Sand leers at Sakura. 

Sakura turns bright red. She looks down at her red dress and tugs at the collar to cover more of her chest.

Naruto doubles over in laughter. Sasuke’s mouth twitches. 

A light mist surrounds the area where Naruto was sitting and in his former place, Naruko blows a kiss at the Sand ninjas. Instead of her usual nude, she’s wearing a low cut orange and blue halter with Naruto’s orange track pants. “Wouldn’t you rather get your honey from me?” Naruko purrs.

Sakura punches Naruko in the arm hard enough to knock her against the ground. “How many times do I have to tell you to stop flirting with the enemy.” 

Naruko whimpers and rubs her arm where Sakura punched her. “So mean to me,” Naruko says breathily, carefully sitting up in a way that shows off her cleavage as she sits up a little too close into Sakura’s space. 

They’ve practiced this maneuver before but haven’t fully tested it. 

By the way Kankuro can’t look away from them, it seems to be fairly effective.

Sasuke can tell that Temari is surprised but not taken in. He leans back in the grass, arching his head back and he takes a slow bite into a tomato.

Temari turns her head away. “Ignore them. They’re pathetic.”

“Come on, cuties,” Naruko says, giggling. “Don’t you want to have fun?”

Kankuro grins at them and turns to his sister. “Come in, you aren’t a little tempted in getting some inter-village cooperation?”

“We need to meet Baki.” Gaara steps out from behind his sister and looks down at Team 7 with scorn. 

Sasuke takes another bite from his tomato, fluttering his eyelids. Gaara doesn’t spare him a second look. Sasuke nudges Naruto’s ankle with his foot in a warning.

‘I guess we’ll see you around,” Sakura says, still bright red and trying to keep the irritation out of her voice.

***

Sasuke likes to think that it’s Anko-sensei’s luck rubbing off on him that is the reason he crosses paths with Gaara when he’s on the court dressed as Daisuke.

Gaara is walking past the court when fucking Tamaki, its always Tamaki, calls out, “Hey redhead, you ball? We need could use someone to even out the teams.”

Gaara turns to stare at them without blinking. Yunlan and Rajan take a step back. 

Tamaki isn’t even phased, but Sasuke’s not surprised. Tamaki is crazy.

Tamaki grins at Gaara, “Come play with us. You know the rules for b-ball?”

“No,” Gaara says without inflection. 

“We could play horse?” Yulan suggests.

“Yeah, play horse with us.” Tamaki says. “All you have to do is get the ball through the net by throwing it. You should join us.”

Sasuke knows this is a terrible idea. Gaara is a jinchuuriki with a long kill list and a habit of killing people just for looking at him according to his file. “It’s fine if you don’t want to play.”

Tamaki smirks, holding out the ball in Gaara’s direction. “Or you could join us?”

Gaara takes the ball and walks out to the center of the court and throws it. The ball doesn’t even come close to the hoop but it stops before it reaches the ground. It’s caught by a floating handful of sand. The sand slowly bring the ball up to the hoop and nudges it right through the net. Gaara turns back towards the players and crosses his arms, glaring.

Sasuke braces himself for the worst.

“That is the coolest shit I have ever seen,” Rajan says, starring reverently. 

“Can you do it again?” Yunlan asks.

Gaara looks completely thrown off guard. 

After another moment, Daisuke’s friends are clamoring for Gaara to do it again with the sand. Gaara has the sand bring him the basketball and he throws it again, this time having the sand direct it straight into the net from where it’s standing.

Sasuke can grudgingly admit that it's kind of cool. He chimes in as Daisuke, asking if he can do it with his back turned to the net.

Gaara does it with his back turned to the net and has the sand push the ball through without even touching the sides of the hoop.

The crowd goes completely wild cheering for him. Other civilians from the neighborhood join the crowd. They cajole Gaara into throwing backwards, sideways, upside down in a handstand, from the other side of the court, from a roof, from the street, basically from every direction they can think of. Gaara looks more pleased and less bewildered as the game goes on, until he almost looks happy as Tamaki starts chanting, “Kage! Kage! Kage!” and the rest of them join in.

Eventually Gaara’s brother Kankuro shows up and drags him off to dinner. Kankuro actually looks like he’s on the verge of panic when half a dozen teenage boys immediately start demanding that he let Gaara keep playing with them. Gaara looks reluctant to leave. Kankuro’s shoulders hunch in when he says that Baki insists and they manage to extract a promise for Gaara to come back and play again.

Sasuke has no idea how he’s going to explain this to Anko-sensei.

***

Sasuke knows that Lee and his team are being entered into the chunin exams and it’s a big deal because they’ll apparently be really young for a team to go into the exams. Usually they want at least two years of genin experience before nominating a team. Apparently their mission records were exemplary.

Clearly, their record is a sign of the phenomenal excellence of Lee pitching in to make up for Neji’s dead weight.

He checks with Ino. None of the other teams from their year were nominated for the exams. Ino’s fairly put out. She’s convinced she could have made chunin if she hadn’t had Chouji and Shikamaru slowing her down.

She’s told Sasuke about their training schedule. He can’t help but secretly agree. Ino’s also a bit miffed that they still haven’t been assigned any C-ranks. Sasuke considers rubbing his B-rank in her face and decides to hold off on it. He can always wait until the next time she gets too full of herself.

***

Lee asks Sasuke to help him out with extra training beyond their usual morning work out. He starts to accept and then stops. He can’t spend more time training with Lee. His team is in the middle of their B-rank. He apologizes to Leeand tells him that the training he does with sensei is taking up his free time. Sasuke offers to swap their morning runs for more training time together but Lee turns him down.

“I would never ask my comrade to stop give up his training for my benefit. We will keep growing strong together.” Lee gives Sasuke a thumbs up.

Sasuke smiles at him sadly.

This is the first time he has to truly lie to Lee and it won’t be the last. It hurts, but Sasuke has to admit, it feels good to lie to a loved one and be believed.

***

Anko sensei pulls them from the chunin exams at the end of the written test and locks them up a room located so deep in the hospital that Sakura repeatedly insists it’s ANBU barracks.

After two days of being locked in, ANBU Swallow walks in and passes out face down in a bunk.

ANBU Swallow also forgets to close the door. They use the slip up as an opportunity to raid the MRE kits. It’s a good move too. ANBU Swallow is gone when they get back and their team has to hide in ANBU headquarters for two more weeks before sensei comes and gets them. 

***

Gaara winds up joining them for basketball more often than not during the chunin exams. Sasuke gets orders to play basketball more often than not just do he’ll be available when Gaara shows up. Everyone from the neighborhood does the same thing and it’s the first time in years that they have more people fighting to play than will actually fit on the court. They call him Gaara-kage-san and fight over who gets to be on his team.

Everyone takes turns watching on the sidelines, sometimes bringing other siblings to watch. Daisuke manages to bring his ‘two baby sisters’ to come watch. Naruto spends most of the time whining about being a younger sister. Sakura mostly fumes about not being able to play.

***  
Operation Love is unsuccessful. Anko-sensei sees through it in two seconds and tell them that frankly, half her “overnight missions” were covers to go get laid in peace and they can stop trying to honey trap her with someone who doesn’t even rate as a challenge. Apparently sensei had been there, done that, and been unimpressed.

The next time she leaves for an overnight mission, Sasuke feels traumatized with the knowledge that sensei might be- No. 

He makes Naruto play Go with him all night until Anko-sensei comes home just so he doesn’t have to think about it.

“Stop abusing your older brother privileges,” Anko snaps. “Sometimes I get fucking laid! People get laid all the time! Believe it!”

Sasuke stares at her in horror. He stares at her until Anko-sensei’s face comes to a slow realization.

“Wait-” Anko-sensei starts to say but it’s too late.

Naruto crows out in delight. “Believe it! Believe it! You said it!” He runs out the greenhouse door straight for the forest.

“No! That never happened. Naruto- Wait- It never happened! It never-” Anko-sensei takes off after him.

***

Morino-san sends Genin Corp members out to drag Sasuke into his office. He gets there after Sakura and waits another twenty minutes in boring silence waiting for who he assumes is Naruto.

The minute Morino-san’s office door closes, he stands up from behind his desk and slams both fists down. “I hope you idiots are happy.”

Sasuke looks at Sakura. She gives him an equally bewildered look. He doesn’t bother to check Naruto He never knows anything.

“Gaara of the Sand is refusing to leave Konoha,” Morino-san says, glaring down at all three of them.

Oh shit, Sasuke thinks, and he can’t help but sink an inch in his chair.

“He’s told his handler that he intends to stay and,” Morino-san pinches the bridge of his nose, “play basketball.”

Sasuke sinks another inch. He doesn’t run to look but he’s pretty sure that Sakura and Naruto are glaring at him.

“You were supposed to monitor, report, and under no circumstances convince him to leave his village!”

Well, Sasuke signs, watching his hands say the damning words without being about to stop, technically the orders were that Naruto wasn’t allowed to do it. It was a civilian who taught Gaara how to play and frankly, Sasuke signs, Naruto was the only one under orders not to flip the target. 

Morino-san lets out a sharp spike of killing intent.

“We can fix this,” Sakura says quickly. “We can talk to Gaara and convince him to go to back to Sand on his own. Sir.”

Morino-san looms over her. Sakura holds her ground, folding her arms in front of her chest.   
He probably shouldn't have spent so much time training them to ignore killing intent if he wanted it to be successful.

He banfs his fist on the desk again. “Your first B-rank is officially going down as a failure. Your current mission is to convince Gaara of the Sand to return to his home village or I swear to you, you will regret the very day you were born.” He bangs both hand on the desk, causing Naruto to jump.

“Sir, yes sir,” Naruto says quickly. He grabs Sasuke by the arm and yanks him up a little harder than necessary. “We’ll get it done right. Believe it!”

***

Daisuke takes his two ‘baby sisters’ out to the basketball courts and practices teaching them how to free throw. It’s nine at night, which made it somewhat suspicious, but Daisuke already has the reputation for occasionally showing up at strange hours.

Daisuke stays there for forty five minutes, trying to coax the girls into playing until Naruko feigns sleepiness, rubbing at her eyes.

Gaara appears a suspiciously quickly after that, telling Daisuke to give him their ball. Naruko pretends to wake up at the arrival, clamoring over “Gaara-nii” and asking Gaara to play with him.

Daisuke tosses them the ball. Fumiko tells them that they should two on two game. It’s nearly 10 at night by that point, which Daisuke thinks is pushing it for their covers but Gaara doesn’t seem to think it’s strange that a pair of pre-genin ages civilians are playing games in the middle of the night.

They play a quick match, after which, Daisuke tosses a couple of juice boxes at Gaara and Naruko and pretends to help Fumiko with her shoes.

Naruko takes that as the opportunity to take Gaara aside and talk with him. It’s a little strange to watch Naruko tug Gaara away, with second hand pass-me-down clothes and no fear. They talk to each other, murmuring quietly.

The conversation goes on for a long enough time that Sasuke wound up curling up on a bench next to Fumiko and just talking to her about her classes and all the other things a dedicated brother does. Sakura’s answers are a lot smoother than they had been a year ago, when they were pre-genin in kunoichi lessons playing two truths and a lie. Sasuke can grudgingly admit Sakura is becoming a better kunoichi.

Eventually Naruko walks away from Gaara and joins their trio, letting Saisuke pick her up in a piggy back hold to carry her home.

Sakura waits until they’re crammed into a tiny ANBU changing station to demand Naruto tell them what happened.

“It’s fine, I fixed it,” Naruto says. “I think that Gaara guy was just really lonely. No one liked him because of that weird Sand beast and when he came here and made friends he didn’t want to give that up.”

Naruto avoids their eyes as he talks. 

Sasuke isn’t sure why Naruto is empathizing with Gaara. Nobody liked Naruto when they were kids because he was annoying. People don’t like Gaara because he’s a deranged mass murderer.

“Anyway, I told him if he wanted to change things he should become Kazekage and in the meanwhile, he could keep the basketball and try making friends in Sand.”

Sasuke swore. 

Sakura looks at him alarmed. “What is it? Did we fail the second B-rank?”

“No, it’s not that,” Sasuke says, glaring at Naruto. “That was my only ball. Idiot.”


End file.
